Bluegrass Beemers

Route 58

I backtrack to Santa Margarita and pick up Rt. 58 East. Jay Smythe had recommended this road from his time out here, describing it as one of his most memorable. I can see why. On a two wheel motorcycle, these endless sweeping curves and switchbacks up and down the mountains would be heavenly. On the sidecar rig, they are still engaging, but at a much slower speed and with considerably more effort. Still, the scenery is marvelous as the land changes from mountains to low foothills, to those curious mounds that look like a giant child has been playing with those sandbox mold toys that make perfect cones or rounded inverted cups. Later the hills change to a series of wrinkled, eroded waves, covered in a light nap of fawn-hued vegetation. The gentle curves of the hills and their color makes me think of thoroughly rumpled bedclothes, with a thin blanket of the softest tan cashmere thrown over them.

Soon I’m on a flat plain, but I think it’s at a high elevation which lets me look around a bit on the straight road. The ranches out here are self-contained, as they must be, since the nearest services are 30 or 40 miles away. I can’t help but think, as I often do when out here, of what it must have been like in the early days to be wandering these hills and plains on a horse, or on foot. Whatever you could see in front of you looked like all the rest around you and you’d still be seeing it tomorrow at a walking pace.

Now that I’m not so focused on the road, I can think a bit about the machine I’m on. Don’t want to jinx myself, but it seems to be running very well, keeping a steady 60 mph on the straight bits at its “happy place” of 4,000 RPM. I love the single piston thump of the engine when it’s at lower revs and the rapid pulse of it up here at the business end of the tach. The sidecar tracks along quite happily beside the motorcycle, but often wants to go its own way when that third wheel gets in a groove or deviation in the pavement. Perhaps it is a metaphor for other kinds of unions, in which two unlike creatures yoke themselves together for what is usually a happy productive endeavor, but every so often one of them wants to go where the other doesn’t.

I’m learning more about handling the rig, experimenting with weight shifts in the corners as I hang off the side. It seems to work best in the tight stuff if I move back to the rear portion of the seat to hang off and feed throttle in slowly as I exit. Yes, I can hear the experienced sidecar drivers out there saying, in unison, “Well, Duh !” but hey, I’m new at this and experimenting to learn. I think Thomas Edison said something like that about his long series of things he tried for an electric light filament. He said something like, “I haven’t failed, I now know several thousand things that won’t work”. I have also learned that it’s best not to push it too hard. It doesn’t change the overall pace much and it seems to require a lot of the machine. Sort of like the old saying, “you can’t teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig”.

58 comes down out of the hills eventually, near Bakersfield (home of Chet Adkins, if I recall) and goes back and forth trying to decide if it’s a two lane country road or a four lane interstate. It really isn’t either one and it is unbecoming to its dignity to keep making the attempts.

Between Bakersfield and Barstow is the little town of Tehachapi, (all you Linda Ronstadt fans out there sing together, “from Tehachapi to Tonapah, driven every kind of rig that’s ever been maa-aid !”) where the Tehachapi Loop is found. Apparently there are only two 360 degree train track loops, allowing a train to ascend a very steep grade, in the world, one in Japan and the other here in southern California. A long train coming around the loop will cross over itself. That’s a big deal to train buffs, I’m told. There are several people standing at the marker when I arrive, waiting for

Tehachapi Sign

a train to come by. They’ve brought the kids, who are playing on blankets oblivious to whatever is attracting the attention of the adults. I give it fifteen minutes and go on my way, leaving the faithful behind to wait and watch.

The other attraction of this little town is a German bakery, again recommended by Jay, where I stop and consume more than my share of calories for the day, and take away a strudel for tomorrow morning. The place is mobbed, even at a later afternoon hour, so Jay and I must not be the only ones who appreciate it.

At Mojave, I veer off into the old town to take a gander at the airport graveyard, the old planes parked as far as I can see. I guess the lack of rust and humidity is the attraction for those who leave these here.

I’m staying tonight in Barstow at the “Route 66 Motel” with its flashing neon sign, the old cars arranged around its courtyard parking lot and a mural on the wall showing scenes from the cities along the historic route. It is kitsch, I know, but when I was a kid in Ashland, Ky, in the 50’s and early 60’s, I dreamed of someday

The Route 66 Motel

traveling out here. It was these places, perhaps this very one, that I saw in the Life magazine articles about the west. There are few modern amenities here at this one, even now. The room is very small, and the bathroom hardly a closet. In my grad school days I once lived for 6 weeks in an 18 foot travel trailer and it had a shower stall about the same size as this one. There is a round bed in the room, one of the features the motel advertises, but at my size, I must sleep across its diameter. The walls are either badly done plaster or an attempt at recreating adobe…it’s hard to tell which. But I like it here. It fits.

Dinner is two blocks up the street at Rosita’s, which says it’s been serving Rt. 66 visitors since 1951. I had hoped to eat at Plata’s, a Mexican restaurant Jay had taken us to several years ago, but it serves daytime hours only and is now closed. Rosita’s is a good substitute. A chorizo and egg burrito, rice and beans and I’m set for the night. Off to my round bed.

I got out of the room on foot, just before daylight,  to watch the sun rise over the rim of the bay.  Brenda had told me that when she was here several years ago, there were otters and seals at play in the water as she kayaked among them.  None today, either the wrong time of year or wrong part of the bay. There were, however, young surfers in the water, and I hope they were early risers and hadn’t been out there all night.  I walked a bit around the bay, but couldn’t go far.  The “former me” would have walked for an hour or two.

Sunrise over Monterey bay

Lots of seagulls, of course, and people running, people walking, alone and with dogs.  Very well tended people and well tended dogs all living the good life in this very good place to be.

I packed up and left, taking the shoreline drive again around the end of the point, then drove back into town to find a restaurant open for breakfast.  There on Lighthouse Ave, I found one that offered a waffle special, for the bargain price (here in Monterey Bay) of only $10.99 (plus coffee).  It was good, as it should have been.

I moseyed back through Monterey and

Monterey Bay

got on 1 south, through Carmel-by-the-Sea.  Soon, the built-up areas were behind me and the road hugged the coast going to Big Sur.  That’s one of those place names that everyone recognizes, even if they’ve never been within a thousand miles of it.  As I take the curves that cling to the side of the mountain, with the ocean a straight drop  far below, I know that I’ve seen every movie star I can think of driving or riding in a convertible on these same places.  I can almost hear theme music playing in my head.  Then I recall that in some of those movies, the car tumbles off these cliffs and catches fire in a twisted heap at the bottom, so I go back to paying attention to where I’m going and what I’m supposed to be doing.

At the Big Sur River Inn, I stop for gas and a thirty-ish couple comes up to the rig.  They had been discussing it, as I filled up, and the wife wanted to know how the sidecar worked.  She had assumed that the black  tonneau cover on the sidecar was a seat and she thought the passenger would have to straddle it and somehow hang on.  I unsnapped the cover and showed her the seat and the windshield.  She was greatly relieved.  Her husband had laughed at her assumption, but admitted that he didn’t really know how it worked either.  This tells me that the newer generations have no experience with old British cars, for which a tonneau was almost standard equipment.  As I was leaving another man came up to ask about the rig.  He had tried one before on a Harley, but “couldn’t get the hang of it”.  When he asked where I was going, I was surprised when he replied that he once worked for Bundy Company, which had a plant in Winchester and had visited there often.  There’s that six degrees of separation thing again.

Just past Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, there is a famous bakery and restaurant that Gary Griffin had recommended and I’ve been saving a place in my rapidly expanding belly for some of the delights to be had at this place.  But I had not counted on this being Good Friday, with a lot of Californians being able to have a long weekend.  I have to park the rig in a space that a car cannot fit, because there is no other.  When I walk down to the cafe, there is a line snaking out the door, probably 30 people and that’s only the ones outside.  Every outside table is filled.  I stick my head in the door so see the rest of the line and see that the bakery case is all but  empty.  Sadly disappointed and still hungry, I move on.  There are two more restaurants within the next few miles, both similarly packed.

I find one less mobbed at Lucia, a nice little place that looks on the outside like a country store, but once inside, is a quite nice restaurant with tables looking out over the ocean.  The windows by the tables are open to the sea air and I can hear the waves and the gulls keeping up their eternal rhythms.  I opt for the salad this time, since my wretched excess in eating on

The view from the window at Lucia

this trip must occasionally give way to sense.  But even that choice becomes pleasurable when the salad turns out to be arugula with feta cheese, mission figs, cranberries, walnuts and a subtle vinaigrette dressing. It seems that I can’t be ascetic even when I try.

Finally the fabled highway comes down out of the mountains and runs along the flats so we, the other tourists and I, pick up some speed.  The ocean is closer now, on the same level as the road all the time and not just in the “bites”.  Still, it is that beautiful color, the waves keep crashing the shore and people at every “vista point” just stand there and stare out at the distance.  I’ve seen the Pacific from both sides and everyone does the same thing.

At Morrow Bay, I turn my back on the sea and head up into the hills again.  The temperature goes up dramatically as soon as the shoreline is out of sight and I have to stop to shed a layer or two and change gloves.  The hills here are yellow, with scrub brush and the occasional avocado farm.  Apparently they cut the trees down to stubs and the new growth comes back with fruit.  Seeing acres of what looks like white plaster casts of severely trimmed trees, five feet high is discordant at first, until I realize that what is going on is agriculture and not some kind of modern art installation.  (Well, it is California, after all, so you can’t blame me for considering the possibility.)

My intention is to find Rt. 58, recommended to me by Jay from his big trip last year, but when I reach the turnoff, it’s after 4 and the first town is Santa Margarita.  The town has taken the secular meaning of its name to heart, since there are many bars where one could sample such cocktails, but no motels.  The next town is over 70 miles away and doesn’t look like it’s big enough to have much either, so in deference to a Friday night, I take the safer bet and go back down to San Luis Obispo.  The first motels I check are full, but I locate a Travelodge within walking distance of a restaurant and a bakery, so my needs are fully met.  This is, I think, the old home town of Richard M. Nixon, but I don’t see any mention of that.

Up at 4 again, still dark but not raining yet.  After a cold water shave in the half bath (no hot available), I sneak over to the main house for the showers before anyone else gets in.  There are no towels, just a hand towel on the sink that folks have been using when washing hands.  Well, any port in a storm.  There’s also no soap, so I wash with my shampoo, which should mean that all my body hair is now silky soft, shiny and voluminous.  TMI ?  I’m writing this by the light of the screen, sitting outside at a rusty patio table, since there is no place to sit in my room.  I’m waiting for daylight so I can hit the road.

At first light, I free the rig from its precarious perch by the gate and I’m off, keeping the ocean on my right.  Highway 1 climbs sharply out of Stinson Beach, winding tortuously up the steep slope on a narrow shelf cut into the rocks.  Much of the road is still dark, since the sun is struggling to get above the rim of the mountain but it already has illuminated the ocean a ways out from shore.  It is spectacular, this chiaroscuro view of rocks and sea, a light show that would cost a fortune to imitate with technology, but here it happens every morning.  I can’t watch as much as I’d like for the road is narrow, not much if any shoulder in many places and occasionally there is a large rock that just couldn’t cling to the heights any longer and has come down to the asphalt to rest.

The curves are, as always on this north coast, tight and endless.  As I reach the top of the mountain nearest San Francisco, there are more housing clusters, very expensive, beautiful constructions ingeniously engineered, the occupants hope, to cling to the sides overlooking the sea.  These occupants work in the big city to pay for these homes and they are in a hurry to drive their Bimmers and Volvos and exotic Italian cars down the mountain to get to the job.  The racers who ascend Pikes Peak would have serious competition from these workers if the race was back down to the bottom.  I pull over at every turnout to let them go by.

Sitting in the Dipsea Cafe near Mill Valley, having breakfast and waiting for the rush hour to die down a bit on the Golden Gate.  I remembered the intersection of 1 and 101 here when I saw it, probably because Brenda and I missed it the first time 20 years ago going north and had to “tour” Mill Valley until we could get turned around.  We had pancakes for breakfast that morning at a restaurant in Sausalito, so I’m having pancakes here today. Can’t find the other restaurant and the traffic at 8 AM is too heavy and frantic for me to explore much.  I dread the thought of going through San Fransisco, but it must be done.

The staff here at this cafe is ignoring me, probably because a travel-soiled  Aerostitch doesn’t fit in well with the obviously upscale clientele they are used to serving.  Three guys at the table behind me are talking about investors, debentures and who knows what in techno-speak lingo.  Not sure what it all means, but if they were talking to me, I’d cover my wallet.

The Dipsea is named after a trail that departs near here and goes up over the mountain to end in Stinson. There is a footrace held on the trail every year.  If it crosses the road in the morning hours, I suspect some of the competitors end up on the grille of a Volvo in an office park in the city.

Getting through San Francisco was easier than I expected. Crossing the Golden Gate bridge, the railings keep the gorgeous view occluded so that motorists don’t lose track of what they’re supposed to be doing.  Still, it’s impressive.  I know it’s just a bridge….but it isn’t.  I’ve ridden across it twice before and I still get a bit of a thrill from it.  Just over the bridge a sign points the way to Rt. One and even though it changes street names often (Veteran’s Way, Presidio Way, etc) there are green highway number signs often enough to keep on target.  It takes me up and down some of the city’s famous hills, past street names I’ve seen and heard in the movies, in novels and old TV shows.  I keep expecting a speeding Mustang to come flying over the next hill, or perhaps a berserk VW beetle with a number on the side.

After clearing the city, Highway 1 calms down and the curves become more gentle and much less frequent as the land flattens out a bit.   I pass through Half Moon Bay, the place where Brenda and I rented the K75  for that trip about 20 years ago.  It doesn’t look too familiar…but then I doubt they remember me there either.

I stopped at a State Beach south of Half Moon Bay, where two teenage boys, probably 15 or so, were playing in the surf watched over by what I assume was their mom.  The boys ran at the waves, ran from them, ran through them and all the while whooped with the sheer joy of being young, healthy and at the beach.  It’s cold and a harsh wind is driving in the breakers, but when you’re 15 or 16, none of that matters a bit.

Gas and chain lubing at Santa Cruz.  A young man on a sport bike zoomed into the lot, took off his helmet freeing an astonishing amount of hair, and said in a perfect “Valley” accent,  “Cool Bike !”   I said I agreed.

At the Beach on the way to Monterey

From Santa Cruz on down to Monterey 1 is a four lane for the most part and there is a cold biting wind blowing right at me, carrying a wet mist that isn’t rain and isn’t fog, but sort of is both.  The land here is flat and arid looking, more like desert within sight of the ocean.  Scrub bushes pop up here and there, with a lot of bare yellow earth in between.  It is, despite the arid appearance, agricultural land with the help of irrigation, and the traffic is a mix of tourist cars and large pickup trucks.

Monterey finally appears.  This place has held a magical image in my mind for years, since reading Cannery Row when I was a teenager.  Not sure why I waited this long to get here.  I took a slow tour along what passes for Cannery Row now, but even with the “development” of the canneries into tourist shops, I still can see the accuracy of Steinbeck’s description.

Along the shoreline drive at Pacific Grove

The afternoon snack is at a bakery on Lighthouse Ave in the contiguous city of Pacific Grove.  After polishing off my pastry, I drop down to the shoreline to cruise along the bay.  I see the Borg Motel, across the street from the bay with a vacancy sign and on an impulse, ask about a room.  I can have one for $72.  I take it.  This is an early stop, but from here on down I don’t think there will be much lodging and if so, it won’t be at this price.  I proceed on with my tour of the bayshore, and it takes me to the

Across the street from the Borg Motel in Pacific Grove

Scenic Seventeen Mile Drive, a private road around the Pebble Beach resort side of the peninsula.  The terminus of the Drive is by the Pebble Beach Golf Club, where the prestigious Concours motorcycle event is held each year  ( I think they play golf there some too, but who cares about that part?).  However, motorcycles are not allowed on the drive, the gate attendant tells me.  Another result of the “loud pipes save lives” brigade.

Dinner tonight at the Beach House, around the corner from my motel room.  An excellent  grilled King Salmon filet with polenta and some veggies.   The waitress even got it for me at the “early bird” price (about 1/3) even though I wasn’t there in time for that.  I guess she felt sorry for the old white-haired geezer eating alone.  I tipp

ed her on the full price, of course.

On the way back to the room, there is a full moon hanging over the bay on this cold and windy night and there are young men out there surfing in the freezing water  Ah, youth.