Pursuit of the Endless Summer #1

Harley Highways

Andrea dwarfed by a redwood

Feeling the rumble of our Harley while riding down the Pacific Coast Highway from Oregon to LA was the perfect way to relax and wind down. With no particular deadline or destination each day, it was excellent preparation for our 14 month journey.

For the first leg of our trip, we found shelter from the rain in the giant redwood forests. We stayed in a KOA ‘Kabin’ (a small, one room wooden shelter with only an unmade bed and small space heater) the second night of our trip to get dry. We were pleasantly surprised about how nice, quiet, and secluded this campsite was just outside of Crescent City campground. We met other travellers who were riding bicycles all the way from Canada and Portland down the California coast, and felt not quite as adventurous. We found this huge redwood tree by accident, looking for a safe place to store our motorcycle helmets before walking through the established paths. This tree was gutted out by a fire, and inside was space enough to camp – about 40 feet high and 15 feet wide. This tree is about 250 feet tall, 20 feet diameter (and about 1000 years old!).

An elk by the road

Continuing on through the redwood forest reserves, we encountered an elk eating peacefully by the roadside until hearing the rumble of the Harley approach. We rode 8 miles on a dirt path, crossing several streams and discovering more wildlife en route to Fern Valley, a beautiful beachside park in the middle of the Redwood forest.

Wine Country

Ah, wine country…our vacation from adventure travelling. As soon as we passed the vineyards we could smell the aromas of the freshly crushed wine – another benefit of riding a motorcycle. We stayed in a spa in Calistoga with a mineral hot tub (well, it was a Comfort Inn, but luxurious to us) and enjoyed fine dining (buying a bottle of wine and eating special cheeses instead of dinner to meet our budget). The best part of touring the wineries was the way people reacted to us when we walked in wearing our biker leathers. Everyone was wonderful! I think we stood apart from the typical tourists and thus had a lot more attention paid to us. We even got invited into the private tasting rooms among the barrels of wine and did the tours at Simi Winery in Sonoma Valley and Mums sparking wine in Napa Valley.

San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

While in San Francisco we stayed at a friend’s downtown apartment, enjoying great dining bargains and gratis drinks at the local bar since our friend’s roommate was the bartender.

We scheduled an extra day to visit the Airtreks headquarters, a travel company specializing in discounted multi-stop around the world tickets. Researching airline tickets can be a time consuming hassle and there’s nothing worse than discovering that another traveller got a better deal. Before deciding on which tickets to buy we read The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World By Edward Hasbrouck, AirTreks.com staff, which is packed with insider tips on purchasing RTW tickets. We had a more difficult itinerary than most (we would be travelling for more than a year and wanted to visit less popular destinations like Palau, Fiji, and French Polynesia) so we welcomed the free consultations and advice Airtreks provided.

The hardest part of purchasing our tickets was deciding where we wanted to go. By booking with Airtreks we could change the arrival and departure dates for our multi-stop ticket at any time with no charge and we didn’t need to worry about always travelling in the same direction with the same affiliate airlines.

However, our favorite perk is the free email and website Airtreks provides. Since we’d spent a few hours talking to Eric, our Airtreks consultant who booked our tickets, and emailing Cat, the Airtreks website designer who helped us attach photos to our trip journal entries, we decided to stop by and meet them in person. It was refreshing to discover that all the employees at Airtreks are seasoned independent travellers themselves, who were happy to wish us “Bon Voyage!”

Big Sur

Big Sur coastline

After San Francisco we experienced the most dramatic stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway – the 150 miles from Monterey to Malibu, known as the Big Sur coastline. Here the mountains drop directly into the sea and the road snakes around the cliffs making an exciting motorcycle ride. The fog danced in and out of the valleys for most of this time and the air was moist and smelled thick with cinnamon and spices similar to French toast (ok, maybe I was just hungry each morning after camping). One night we found a spectacular campsite right on the cliffside and enjoyed only the sounds of the ocean crashing into the shore. Since there were no city lights in view, we could clearly see the Milky Way arch like a rainbow from the mountains directly into the ocean. The only unfortunate aspect of this particular campsite was the poison oak that surrounded our tent, so I let Dale put the tent up by himself that night (this kept the crowds and families away!).

We also toured the Hearst Castle, just south of the Big Sur region – definitely a worthwhile excursion. On our tour we met 7 Swedish ‘cowboys’ – guys from Sweden who were travelling through the US for a year who rented two Harleys and bought a convertible Cadillac Eldorado with Texas longhorns mounted on the front. They’d been travelling like this from Miami, Florida across the United States, picking up mementos along the way. If they look like this after just three months abroad, it will be interesting what we’ll look like after travelling abroad for a year…

Pack Rats!

All our crap!

We tried to reduce our pack sizes from 40 to 25 lbs or so each, but without throwing out the tent, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, and medicine we just couldn’t do it! I’m sure after a few months we’ll have to throw out some clothes anyway)

During our last week in America for the next 13 months, so we are busy making final preparations and visiting family and friends. We spent our time primarily at Dale’s parent’s house in Montclair, California and Dale’s brother’s house in Desert Hot Springs. We have also enjoyed our time around L.A. in several coastal cities. We’ve visited Hermosa Beach (stayed with Louis, a fellow Harley rider and past traveller I met on the Rick Steves tour when I did my photography work): Manhattan Beach (stayed with Zach and Jennifer, past managers from Blackbird resort in Belize): and Huntington Beach (stayed with Kitte and Erik Dudley, long time family friends). We can’t remember the last time home cooked meals have tasted so good, and how nice it is staying with family and friends – and we were only on the road for two weeks beforehand!

Since leaving Portland, we’ve travelled 1700 miles on the Harley – it’s surprising how many more miles rack up taking the back roads and the Pacific Coast Highway instead of interstate highways.