Road Trip '08 Ch. 2: Enter The Dragon

After a long, dreary, wet, uneventful ride up I-5 on day 1, all we hoped for Memorial Day was some blue sky and a road or two that, you know, turn right and left and stuff.
A peek out our hotel bathroom window within seconds of waking up revealed we were off to a good start. There wasn't a cloud in the skies above Merced and it had stopped raining early enough in the wee hours of the morning for the tarmac (As well as our bikes) to completely dry from Sunday's soggy weather.
We packed up and set out for breakfast to find the entire town closed to honor this country's fallen vets. (Including the Merced Theater. Good to see that even the podunks have a reperatory theater. Support your local rep house, people!) Before all hope was lost, Damian directed our attention to a shining black and yellow beacon of hope on the right...

I suppose I should explain: I've been obsessed with Sonic Drive-In for several years now. The chain has been advertising during college football games for as long as I can remember, but since they don't operate in L.A. I've never been to one, leaving me wondering for years now at what I might be missing. The people on the commercials always look so happy clutching their 96-oz. raspberry lemonades and Super Chipotle Bacon Ranch Monterey Jack Triple Cheeseburgers.
I discuss this with people from parts of the country that have Sonics, and I'm always met with a look that is equal parts confusion and disgust. May not be a big deal to someone who grew up on post-Sunday School Cinnamon Toast Sticks somewhere in the Texas panhandle, but they obviously don't understand the effect years of mass marketing can have on a guy.
I informed the crew for last year's trip about my wish to finally get my hands on some Sonic-style 1,200-calorie goodness, but it never quite panned out. We only passed one, and it was literally two miles up the road from where we had just eaten outside of Bakersfield.
But I am a stranger to America's Drive-In no longer!

Seeing as how they had absolutely nothing that didn't have pork in it on the breakfast menu, I decided to go big and get a super breakfast burrito that had both sausage and bacon. I'd like to tell you that a breakfast twenty years in the making was so phenomenal that it shook the pillars of Heaven, but, as we all know, greasy, fried fast food has its limitations. I do give Sonic huge points, though, for masking the taste of their food's overprocessing with a heaping fistful of diced jalapenos.
With a belly full of grease, we hit a local drug store for ear plugs (Three dudes who snore, one hotel room. Do the math) and ear phones (One of my ear buds didn't survive Sunday's trip.) I only bring this up becuase I discovered the greatest thing I'd ever laid eyes on near the cash register.

Because, deep down inside, don't we all wanna smell like Ace Frehely?
We took Route 140 out of Merced, which began with a long, straight stretch that led us out of the San Joaquin Valley. I took this opportunity to work up the balls to fish my camera out of my pocket and get some shots whilst moving at 85 mph.



The road gradually got greener and twistier as we neared Mariposa, and I howled with delight as we finally, FINALLY got to make a sweeping left turn. We'd put nearly 250 miles between ourselves and home and these were the first proper corners we got to lean our bikes into, but this road was well worth the wait as we were cradled between wooded areas and rock formations through a series of rolling high-speed switchbacks.
We blew through Mariposa -- Our first night's stop on last year's trip -- and turned left at Route 49 and the reason we took a 90 mile detour on our way to the coast...


The Little Dragon is about 15 miles of pristine, twisty bits that carve through the countryside outside of Yosemite and were pretty much tailor-made for idiots on motorcycles. The road attracts gearheads from all over as three other motorcyclists and an older couple in a mind-bogglingly large RV pulled over to join us at the top of the Dragon while I snapped pictures and Damian tried to figure out why his speedometer had called it quits.



One of the riders, a middle-aged guy on a red Honda, had a seemingly GPS-esque knowledge of the local roads and recommended a route West for us that would lead us on a backroad alongside a winding river and, best of all, around Modesto's urban blight. When we greeted him with puzzled looks as he rapidly rattled off a series of street and route names, he offered to draw us a map before we set off.

After stopping to help a girl who, from what we could gather, was tossed off of the back of her boyfriend's Ninja when he took a sharp hairpin too hot (HIM: Road rash. HER: Likely a broken radius & ulna. Nothing that wouldn't heal.), we tore into the Dragon like a fat guy at Sizzler. I was literally giggling into my helmet as I flicked my Kawi from side-to-side through a seemingly endless series of lefts and rights. The road is simply a dream on a bike as it rolls its way down into a valley, over a bridge, through several wooded areas and back into another set of hills that cradle you until the road is all too quickly interrupted by a stop sign and a small town called Coulterville. We pulled over to grab a drink and bask in the Dragon's awesomeness some more before we veered left onto Route 132 and broke toward the coast.

Needless to say, a crudely scrawled map is pretty much useless in our hands, so we failed to make a turn or two where our Honda-riding buddy suggested and stayed on the 132 until it spat us out in Modesto. Fortunately, the 132 was also a great ride that serpentined through the foothills and tiny towns like La Grange (Cue ZZ Top) that look like they were literally carved out of the hillside a century and a half ago.
We pulled over in a tiny town called Keyes where we planned a new super-secret route that would bypass the freeways in favor of what appeared on an area map to be a winding back road through the farmland.
Also needless to say, we wound up lost again and instead limped through two tiny blink-and-you-miss-them cities, Grayson (Which I assume is named after Nightwing) and Westley. Our failed reservoir run led us smack dab into I-5, which we happily jumped onto before we could get lost yet again.
The 5 led to the 580, which in turn led to a road that we were sure would snake around Livermore and circumnavigate a giant reservoir before leading us to the home stretch into Half Moon Bay.
Yep. Lost again. No reservoir, and the bit of switchback that we did ride was spent behind a beat up old camper who refused to either drive faster than 5 miles less than the posted speed limit or pull over and let the line of traffic that had accumulated in his wake pass. When Grandpa did finally pull over, I at least was able to grab another road shot.

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Fremont where we planned the final leg of day 2 (Wishful thinking, I know) while I destroyed a plate of huevos rancheros and a massive iced tea. I suggested we should take the San Mateo Bridge, which would not only offer a sweet ride across the Bay but would also then lead us directly into Half Moon Bay leaving us no chance whatsoever at getting lost.

The view from the bridge was amazing, as the low road seems to be floating on the San Francisco Bay and offers a scenic shot of the Golden Gate Bridge to the right as you head into San Mateo. I considered trying for another road shot, but thought better of it when a few strong gusts threatened to blow all three of us into one of the adjacent lanes.
The hills got greener and the air got colder, signalling that we were getting close to the coast. We pulled into the hotel a little before 7, and were thrilled to find a bigger room than the one we were offered in Merced which meant there was no threat of us rolling over into each other's bunks sometime during the night. The hotel was also within walking distance of a taqueria that makes a slammin' shrimp burrito I'd consider having again for breakfast tomorrow if we weren't getting a free one from the fine folks at Holiday Inn.
We're sticking to the coast for the rest of the way home, which I'm excited about because I've never seen Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. I'm doubly excited because that huge freakin' body of water to the West greatly reduces our risk of making a wrong right turn and getting lost.
PLAYLIST (Jack White Day)
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells, Elephant, Icky Thump
The Racounteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers, Consolers For The Lonely

DAY TWO STATISTICS
1: Number of crashes suffered
0: Number of crashes my crew suffered
3: Number of potentially great rides on two-lane blacktops ruined by ridiculously slow Northern California motorists
Too many to count: Number of minutes spent lost and superfluous miles spent getting unlost

Road Trip '08 Ch. 1: Escape From L.A.

As I sat in my apartment hours before leaving on a road trip I'd been planning and drooling with anticipation over for months, I faced a crisis of conscious: Can I put down my Guitar Hero controller long enough to head out on the road?
My crew and I would literally riding up and down the Golden State for nearly four days, logging a total of 1000 miles and change on our bikes. Sounds great and all, but I'm never going to beat 3's & 7's by Queens of the Stone Age if I go on a four-day hiatus from Guitar Hero, my newest obsession and a game more addicting than candy-flavored heroin.
Fortunately, I had, to quote Jules Winfield, what alcoholics call a moment of clarity, packed up a few changes of underwear and hit the tarmac. Last year's road trip -- Another grand tour of California that took me as far North as San Francisco over five days -- gave me a taste for travelling on two wheels, and now I'm dying for some more.
Damian, a co-worker and fellow survivor of the '07 odyssey, is back again this year. He recently traded in a late-model Triumph Bonneville Speedmaster that was neither speedy nor masterful and often left him stranded on the side of the road for a rugged Kawasaki KLR650 that looks like it could go through Hell and back on a single tank. The thin motocross seat, however, leaves Damian wondering aloud if his ass will fare as well.
This year's rookie is John, a.k.a. the Respiratory Ninja. I gave him the name because of his propensity for appearing to deliver a breathing treatment to a lunger in the ER, then disappearing again just as quickly before anyone has a chance to page him for help. The Ninja rides an exotic Ducati Monster that's sexy as Hell and sounds like a pit bull on steroids but starts to resemble a torture rack when its rider is told he has to ride 300 miles a day bent over the gas tank.
My beloved blue Kawi Z750 was rejuvinated in the days leading up to Sunday's departure by a transfusion of the essential motor fluids and a high-performance K&N air filter that has it screaming like a banshee above 6,000 RPM. I was pleasantly surprised when, fresh from Kolbe Cycles, the scenery got real blurry as I grabbed a handful of throttle entering the 101. My boy was definitely ready to devour some pavement.

Missing in action is Scott, yet another coworker who was the brains of our operation. Last year he meticulously planned the ride down to the last detail, ensuring we always wound up on a little-traveled windy back road that begged to be carved on a motorcycle. A newborn is keeping him at home this year, and pretty much ensures that we will get lost and wind up somewhere in Nevada.
As I predicted, we hit our first snag Saturday night before we even logged a single mile. Damian with news of a weather report that called for snow on the 395, which we planned to take for a couple hundred miles through the Sierras before landing in Yosemite National Park's back porch.
As I headed to the New Bev to catch another Saturday midnight masterpiece (One word: PAHOO), Damian glommed together another route that would take us straight through California's seemingly endless miles of cow-crap-scented farmland to Merced, a slightly larger dot in a string of tiny ones that line Interstate 5.
GOOD NEWS: We won't get snowed on.
BAD NEWS: The road is long, straight, offers absolutely nothing that would even remotely be considered interesting and, as I mentioned a paragraph ago, smells like cow crap.
So, with dark, angry-looking clouds dominating the sky and threatening to dump on us at any given moment, we left the friendly confines of the 818 for a long day of sledding. Fortunately, it did nothing more than trickle during our 200-mile odyssey, but that didn't deter John from bundling up like he was trying to reach the North Pole. The Ninja resembled Randy from the epic A Christmas Story as he donned a bright blue rain suit on top of a thick leather Alpinestars jacket on top of a sweat shirt on top of a short-sleeved shirt on top of a long-sleeved shirt. He completed the dog-sled driver ensemble with a hood beneath his beanie beneath his helmet. The crowning achievement came during our first fuel stop out in the middle of nowhere when he emerged from the gas station's convenience store grinning from ear to ear and holding his hands in front of his face for Damian and I to inspect.

"They sell mittens!" he happily proclaimed. His hands now sported a pair of white woolen gloves that made him look a little like an Asian Mickey Mouse. Who knew you could buy so much happiness for $1.50 in a cowtown Gas & Sip?
We landed in Merced cold, wet and starving, but still amped from the exhiliration hours of high-speed riding bring. We got through the hours of rain completely unscathed, which is more than we can say for the bottom half of John's Smurf suit.

Hours of high-velocity travel shredded the pants, which gave 'em kind of a cool, psychadelic-era fringe effect. He didnt agree and promptly filed them in the hotel dumpster.
We had to get squared away before going on a hunting and gathering mission, and were dismayed when we surveyed our sleeping arrangement.

Two beds and a rollaway cot lined up to form one megabed that will allow three grown-ass men to sleep shoulder-to-shoulder. Apparently, Damian neglected to mention that he booked us the Brokeback Suite.
We followed the first rule of the road trip -- Whenever possible, sample the local culture by passing over the big chains to grub at mom & pop restaurants -- and hit up a local barbecue joint that had good fish tacos and huge freakin' beers.

But even better than the provisions was the mascot standing guard at the front door. I seized the oppotunity to correct years of shame that my Harley-owning family members have felt about yours truly buying a Japanese bike and took a ride on a huge Hawg.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a bit more eventful as backtrack a little toward Yosemite to hit some of the tasty roads leading out of the park before doing a U-Turn and heading West to Half Moon Bay. I fell in love with Yosemite last year, and even though we're too pressed for time to head into the park, the area surrounding it is also beautiful and featured a couple of pristine bits of Tarmac that I can't wait to shred.
And who knows what other treasures will be unearthed at the area convenience stores?

PLAYLIST
Metallica - Black Album, Master of Puppets, Ride The Lightning

DAY ONE STATISTICS
1: Pairs of fuzzy white gloves purchased.
4: Estimated average miles you can travel through the Central Valley without passing a roadside sign pimping nut growers, a local nut store or some nut-related attraction.
0: Number of nut-related attractions we stopped for.
1: Number of towns passed named Chowchilla. If you think that's not worth noting, say "Chowchilla" out loud to yourself a couple times, and overenunciate the "Ow" and "Chilla."
1: Number of roads passed named Sandy Mush Road. Also fun to say aloud, but it also made me wonder if it was named after a patch of sand or in honor of a local woman named Sandy Mush.

Did you use the commode story?

You know how you see a movie so many times that it becomes attached to the period of your life when you watched it the most? Just a mention of the title brings back a flood of memories from the period when a copy of the film took permanent residence on your VCR/DVD Player/TiVo.

One of those movies for me is
RESERVOIR DOGS. It was the mid '90s, college and the waning days of the VHS age. A ratty ol' copy of the film that was pressed pre-PULP FICTION (i.e. When the word Tarantino was only spoken among geeks) was viewed ad nauseum by the unofficial film club I belonged to comprised by my roomie Ray, his girlfriend Jo and four chicks who lived in an apartment down the hall.



Despite having seen it more times than any human should, I had never seen it on the big screen until Friday night when I caught a showing atThe New Beverly Cinema, which has revived it as the de facto midnight Friday movie following a hiatus.

I find it hard to believe that any of you reading this, all three of you, haven't seen it several times yourselves and heard more opinions than you'd care to on it already, so I'll keep it brief. What struck me during this viewing was how well it has aged after all these years and how well it stacks up against QT's bigger-budgeted films. The film doesn't feel dated, or even played out despite the endless hordes of pale imitators that followed in the mid-'90s. (I'm looking at you, THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD.)

I'm still struck by Mr. Orange's backstory, in particular the flashback-within-a-flashback that takes place when he learns and practices the commode story that cements his place on Joe's diamond caper roster. In an era where the audience lacks the attention span to follow any story that doesn't lead them by the hand through three, simple linear acts, it took a crate full of balls to break away from a flashback to allow the characters to digress about how they got to the flashback in the first place.

In fact, RES DOGS reminds me a lot of Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut. Both QT and Zep came firing right out of the chute w/a bold and fully developed sense of style that you wouldn't expect from rookies. Both singlehandedly kickstarted their respective genres. And both are just plain badass.

Welcome to the 21st century...

... eight years late is better than never, right?

I've been on a technological roll as of late. Hot on the heels of acquiring a real-life computer and replacing the world's oldest cel phone (Seriously, the thing had a rotary dial on it) with my shiny new iPhone (Even covered it in a badass mirrored case that looks like the guitar Matthew Bellamy from Muse uses), I now have now ended my holdout as the last remaining American under the age of 40 *not* to have a blog.

Yes, sunshine, you're looking at it right now.

I'm not going to bore you with the mundane details of my life. Instead, I'll be focusing on my two true passions as I explore the backroads of California on my Kawi and wear an Eric-sized butt groove into the seats of as many of Los Angeles' reperatory movie houses as I can. For it's endless faults, LA really does have a righteous rep house scene that brings out some of the coolest filmmakers to press the flesh with us geeks. It's like one perpetual roving film festival that's allowed me to see some of my all-time favorites on the big screen as God intended and meet some of the people who've been prolonging my childhood for nearly two decades now.

Above is a pic to get the ball rolling, taken in the men's room of an overpriced cafe out in the middle of freakin' nowhere on a tire- meltingly hot day last weekend as I chased my mom on her modded-to-the teeth Harley Softail Deluxe and her friends, my "Uncle" Dave and Allison, on their two-wheeled Screaming Eagle monstrosity up the 101 to a tiny dot on the map called Los Alamos. The sign welcoming us and dozens of other middle-aged Harley riders that day to their tiny town was pimping this summer's "61th Annual Old Days." Maybe they didn't have an "s" to put an "st" after the 61, but I just assumed it was some kinda local dialect.

I still don't know why there was a John Wayne standee in the men's room of this cafe, but I figured it was worth capturing for posterity. Or maybe it was the heat stroke talking.