Leaderboard

May 18 Day 20 I packed up at the KOA and headed north on mountain highway 99 which is just incredible twisties most of the way. Unfortunately we had the first casualty of the journey... The little guy just ran out before I could react and that was that. Within 2 miles of mounting back up I passed my first cattle on the road. I was surprised that cows were allowed to walk on a road with such a steep drop off into the raging river below. A little after the cattle I passed a pretty cool little waterfall I entered southern sequoia and found an awesome little alpine road 23S16 and turned down it and just kept going because the riding was incredible. Boulders all over the road which was thick with a mat of pine needles. The surface beneath wasn't asphalt but something else nice and grippy. It made for an extremely fun ride at a good clip through some pretty cool places I've got more pics of this little jaunt but the camera is charging right now so I can't wifi them over to my phone. After a while I backtracked my way out realizing I had killed at least an hour in the wrong direction though it was great riding I still had not seen any truly gigantic trees yet. So I got back on mountain highway 99 and headed north got turned around for a bit near jonsondale but pulled out the trusty butler map and figured it out. From mountain highway 99 I headed north again on the m90 which becomes 190 after a good bit of twisties. 190 turned west and is awesome up to Portervill then it's still nice but not as scenic, north again on 65 which is long and straight with traffic lights but there's all sorts of local fruit for sale along the roadside and I picked up five of the best blood oranges I've ever had for $1.03 with a giant bucket of cherries for $5.00. I don't have a pic of the cherries because I literally put them between my belly and tank bag and ate them on the rest of 65 and beginning part of 198 up to Kaweah lake area. Damn good snack for the road if you ask me. I've got a video of that Somewhere I'll post later on. Somewhere along the way I stopped at the trail of 100 giants, which was closed but as soon as I cut my engine I heard a 45 second long thunderous cracking crashing sound that ended with an actual earth shaking crash. The park ranger stationed at the trail head to prevent people from sneaking on explained that was a full sized sequoia being felled because it had died and was a risk to other trees around it. The sound had been the tree tipping crashing through the canopy shattering and cascading downhill. I found it sad to realize I had just heard the end of a multi thousand year old giant sequoia, but also glad that there are people who protect the remaining trees and lucky to have heard such a rare event... A fully grown sequoia falling in the forest. I wonder how rare an event that actually is. The ranger was cool after I told him where all I had been and let me cross the road and run just a couple yards into the forest and snap a pic. 198 turned into twisties just a little after Kaweah lake and took me into central Sequoia to the hospital flats campground which is small secluded and right down by the river. It had clean bathrooms and a big outdoors slop sink to wash your pots out in. I set up camp, ate my blood oranges talked to some nice people around the camp ground and a bunch of teenage boys who liked the jawbone beak ornament on Furiosa. An older guy who was also from NJ and here to do one of the big hikes through the giant forest. And a guy from Texas came over to take a picture of Furiosa and I to send to his buddy back home who also rides a bimmer. Still one of the best aspects of traveling is the people you meet. May 19 Day 21 I had wanted to sleep in just a little bit this day but was woken up by an arguing couple at the site next to mine. It was pretty much the first bad morning I have had on the trip, but the good side is I just wanted to get away from that bs so I packed up and headed towards the giant forest 17 miles north of my camp site. The bad side was I had forgotten to turn on my spot tracker for the first time. I entered the giant forest and was awestruck by the size of the trees. Unfortunately the camera just can't do justice to the enormity of the sequoias when your up close to them. I spent some time relaxing under one of the largest ones and pulled out my map to pick a route towards the coast. I pulled out my butler map and decided San Simeon would be a good spot on the coast to shoot for then work my way north up the 1 for a day or two. So I headed west on 198 to 180 to 41 south to 46 east to the 1. At 3:54 pacific standard time, after 21 consecutive days on the road I had reached the coast and officially crossed the United States of America traveling solo by way of motorcycle. What an epic moment to see that incredible Pacific blue expanse. I felt suddenly exhausted as if the cumulative fatigue of the journey had finally hit me. I pulled off at the first campground along the 1 and set up camp, cooked up some beefaroni + ravioli and decided to actually sleep in for a change in the morning. Just before bed I met an older guy named Larry who is from Carmel. He called me a modern day cowboy and wished me safe travels and told me Big Sur would be crowded and that I would probably have more luck in Monterey or Carmel. He also warned me of the construction on the Bixby bridge which I had badly wanted to photograph. I wanted to text some friends and family and tell them I had reached the coast but had no service, so I updated my journal and called it an early night. May 20 Day 22 Finally I got to sleep in until 930! I packed up my camp relaxed in my Hammock in the morning sunshine until 11 or so then headed out north on the 1. About 20 minutes north I pulled over at the elephant seal viewing area, parked in the bike section, and was pretty shocked to see hundreds maybe thousands of elephant seals resting on the beach, honking at each other sporadically. Seeing he seals was an unexpected gem of the journey. I had no idea I would see those incredible creatures and so close in such huge numbers just sunning lazily. It was a great start to the day. Then on my way back to the bike I met a French guy about my age who was on his way from KC to Argentina on his Super Tenere. He had already mounted up and was about to pull out so we only talked for maybe 3-5 minutes but he seemed like an interesting guy and spoke great English. I just wish I had gotten his social media information to follow his journey. I mounted back up and headed north again towards Big Sur had some traffic through the twisties which was a little frustrating but not horrible. Big Sur was cool but crowded, no campgrounds had open tent sites and everything was no vacancy, a gas station I stopped at was even out of gas! Another 30-40 miles north into Carmel I decided to get a room, shower up, get some diner and take advantage of some wifi. Nice little cabin for 160 at the Carmel resort inn between first and second street. I called up and scheduled the 18k mile service and new tires at Santa Rosa BMW on the 25th giving me time to head inland to see Yosemite and maybe check out travertine hot springs which Madelinn had recommended to me back in Joshua Tree. I spent an hour waking around downtown Carmel looking for food everything here is either way to fancy or like weird crystals, wine tasting, art galleries, hand crafted Himalayan silver yuppy places and I didn't meet any nice people in the entire hour of walking around. Don't get me wrong I'm all about being who you are but this was the first time I felt like an outsider during the entire trip. Finally I found a burger place. 400 degree burgers I believe it was called. Turned out this too was some sort of ultra cultured burger place. I got a bison burger fries and a coke for 21 bucks! Seemed a little steep to me. It was damn good though. Headed back to my room to update you guys and check out the map to plan out the next few days.

Hey Ruppbike, white rim was pretty epic but at a couple points I was really wishing I had a buddy with me and an unloaded bike. The 700 can do it no problem though just make sure you've got a solid bash plate on there. I'm riding on hidenau K60 scouts and they look to me as if they might have about 2k miles left on them and they've got probably 6.5 now. I really like this tire a lot. Thanks for reading!