Saturday, May 22, 2010

day one - twain harte

the first day started out rather nicely with the check engine light coming on and telling me not enough oil. A quick stop at the mechanic fixed this and we did not put enough in at the oil change.

10 Minutes later it started to rain till my arrival in sacramento and from there it was sunshine and windy while I was driving down the 99. After the wind decided to push me over 2 lanes, I decided to reroute and use the backroads, like the 104 and 125 to the 49. Which turned out to be beautiful. I was passing a nuclear power plant, which looked magnificent surrounded by orchards.
And past he Preston Castle in Ione. The last time I was at this castle I was helping out with a photo shoot and these pictures can be seen here. So it was nice to drive by again and look at it.

At a random point in time I was totally lost and managed to find a REI store and buy some quick stuff, like a lantern, knife sharpener, batteries and first aid kit. First 100$ of the trip are already gone.

Once I passed San Andreas I had to pull over, since it started a bit to rain, but my riding skills defiantly got much better on the 49 and it was the first time I did not drift out on a certain curve.

Around 8.45pm I arrived at the 128 and it turned very dark, started to hail and my one headlight blew out ( I have too) . So tomorrow I need to find a place which sells me a new head light. At 9.00pm I arrived in twain harte and was struggling with the dark and the hail, trying to find the main entrance, when a truck pulled me over and it turned out to be ashley who arrived at the same time and so I followed her to the cabin and got off the bike.

Now how to get the gloves try till sunday evening, this is going to be a good question.

Also while sleeping at the cabin I realized that my sleeping bag is not warm enough and even with a liner and fleece pants it turned out to be to cold.

It also turned out that I forgot my sweater/jacket and now need to find a REI store tomorrow around the way to get a sweater to keep me warm at night.