Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

The first song is pretty inspired!  It is Saturday AND....drum roll...we drove in a tree!  But more of this later.  Firstly it seems the Bulgarian Massive are firmly behind us now with a total of 10 hits.  Thank you Bulgaria, we love you. A few more words about last night.  The Redgate Villas motel is a simple 8 room place in Leggett, CA (population 122).  It is run by Mike who looks just like Mikey from American Chopper and possibly IS Mikey.  A very nice guy who handed over his garden, gas barbeque and most of his crockery so we could cook dead animals and feed the troops.  When I arrived he was busy giving away his profit on the night by sharing his malt whiskey collection with the punters.  This was much appreciated by the punters for obvious reasons, and by me because anything tastes ok after a few malt whiskies. Our campsite was almost as good....run by Billy - a Mancunian who left England 22 years ago when her husband died of ...

Today the sun had a really very big hat on indeed.  LM2 indicated 94 degrees F at about 3 o'clock and everyone found the very short day suprisingly tough.  We are slowly putting those bleedin Redwoods behind us but they have a last hurrah as we are staying in Leggett - site of the drive through tree: Tomorrow I will take LM2 and see if it fits through.  Alan is doubtfull but I reckon that the trick is to take a good run at it and go through FAST. They really are quite big these Redwoods.  Our campsite is, again, in the forest and the following picture is of just an ordinary tree of which there are countless thousands.  To take it I had to lay on my back on the forest floor and I am still picking bits of twig out of my pants. Today our campsite has a pool and I had time for a quick dip while Alan was slogging up a long hill in the heat....titter.  Once again the motellers are in the middle of nowhere so we laid on a barbeque.  Every...

The Tony christie song......no not THAT one, the other one. Today I spent the morning chasing around after a bike that kept puncturing but eventually we swapped the tire and it started to behave.  We are now in the Avenue of the Giants so guess what?  yup, more bloody Redwoods,  though impressively fat tall redwoods and the riding has been very lovely.     The plan was for us to camp in the grounds of the motel where the others were staying but thanks to Tanya at the Redcrest Resort (who decided to ignore our tent booking and dig up the campground) we are staying in Burlington Campground '4' miles further on.  This is a Tanya 4 miles so actually 8.1.  THANKS Tanya! Having pitched out tents we then returned 8.1 miles to sit on the porch, eat pizza, drink bear and talk b******s while the sun set.   We are away from the coast and temperatures are now a toasty mid-80's and full sun, though there is plenty of shade in...

I expect you have missed us!  A lack of phone or wiffy signal and general busyness have prevented reports for a while but today we are wired for sound.  This is the entry for Wednesday 26th and a big welcome to our overseas readears.....yes, GOMOB has gone global - here are the stats for the last month:   A particularly big welcome to our Costa Rican reader!!  And maybe I'll use a Bulgarian song title some time soon.  Possibly even a whole day written Bulgarian as, having leant Italian on last years trip, new languages just get easier and easier.   Redwoods - that pretty sums up our day.  Lots and LOTS of Redwoods.  Oh yes, and mist.  Nearly as much mist as Redwoods.  Here is Alan sitting down....inevitably there is a Redwood in the picture. The riding has been very pretty in a misty redwoody kind of way and we finished the day in Trinidad (the one in California NOT the one next to And Tobago).You know the...

Tuesday and we have passed into California.  This means we have done 2/3 of the states but only 1/3 of the miles.  The riding today has been exceptionally pretty with the ocean a few feet to our right for much of the time.  We are now in  Cresent City, or rather in a KOA 5 miles north and camped in the middle of the redwood forest.  The realy BIG redwoods are still 2 days south but we are, none the less, sleeping at the base of chuffing big trees.  Tonight we went into town for tastly foodstuffs and had a meal around the camp fire and I am writing this by the power of KOA wiffy.  The whole group is now pretty independant; I drop the bags at their hotel around 2:30 and meet them here next morning but the late afternoons and evenings are pretty much my own.  Not that I do anything very productive with the down time - I should really take up knitting.  Steve

Our rest day was very welcome and we ended it in the nearby bar were Alan had watched Merican football all afternoon.  Monday dawned with clear blue skies and it was a lovely day's riding, amongst the most scenic so far.  We are now always very close to the Specific and at times there are cooling sea mists but the sun frequently burns through and we enjoy temperatures in thge 70's.  As you might expect there are always dinosaurs about (bet you weren't expecting THAT!).  On our rest day we discovered a baby dinosaur called Dino who has become our official mascot: I took this picture to make him look really big but with a sophistacted readership like you there is no point pretending - he is really only about 6 feet long.  His daddy on the other hand is really REALLY big: We are staying in the middle of nowhere - a small 8 room cabin style motel with a campground in front:     Very basic but clean and rather good fun.  For dinner...

The Moody Blues one, not all that Enya or Robbie Williams crap. It is our rest day and very little has been done. After a leisurely get up we had a brief trip to the beach and yours truely had a dip in the Specific (as we now call it). Anything that could shrivel or retreat into a body cavity did so - the rest just went blue.   We have a virtually private beach  and our very own secret passage to it from our pitch: very dingly. Laundry has also been done and is now draped around the camp drying.  Unfortunately our pitch is very shady and we have to utilise bushes, the bonnet of LM2 and anything else that happens to briefly face the sun.  I got a bit carried away with laundry and washed my only shoes so we then had a barefoot drive into town to buy some flip-flips.  The rest of the day has been frittered away with cleaning out LM2, catching up on paperwork and a bit of reading. The weather has been perfect with clear skies and highs of ab...

Today is something of a 'no news' day - no transvestites, no disasters with the car, no shoe-related conflagrations. But the riding was STUNNING. The mist/cloud has finally gone and the view from my tent flap as the sun rose looked something like this.     Actually it looked EXACTLY like that because that is where I took the picture from.  The scenerary has been specacular as we hug the coast past endless sandy beaches and sand dunes and everyone has got a real lift. We are now in Coos Bay - a nice counter-balance to the splendours of the day as it is a typically grotty Merican industrial town.  This is the location for our first rest day and chosen because it is an 'all services' location in contract to the small holiday resorts we mostly pass through.   Today I am stealing Interweb from the Super 8 Motel, though as I have kjust given them the best part of $1000 for the guest's rooms it won't trouble my sleep too much. Steve PS I...

I have been promising people whales on this trip and, thank goodness, today I was able to deliver. A little south of Lincoln City there is a bay which claims to be the Whale watching capital of the galaxy (don't you love Mericans?) And we stopped for a look see. They were some way off shore but we definitely saw backs, tails and the odd water spout so we can put that down as a definite whale sighting. Alan says they might be Minkies but I'm pretty sure they were whales. We also saw Pelicants (like Pelicans but less helpful) and Seals. It was another misty day but very scenic riding and, with only 51 miles to do, everyone finished nice and early. You may notice that I have added photies for the last couple of days - this was achieved by driving down Highway 101 and stopping every few miles to check for unsecured wiffy signals. After about 5 goes I found one and sat at the roadside uploading piccies. The only other excitement for the day was when I left LM2 in d...

We had a jolly evening by the fire with enormous pizzas and good beer and it made a nice change from dashing around in LM2 ferrying people to restaurants. Unfortunately, an evening of running the cooler, powering electrical devices and forgetting to turn off all unnecessary car electrics resulted in a flat battery this morning. Bugger. Fortunately we were rescued by the least feminine transvestite I have ever seen. He...She was camping two pitches down from us and wearing a very fetching outfit with pumps, tights a little black dress and blonde wig. The effect was rather spoiled by him being about my height and built like a brick s**thouse with shovels for hands. Oh yes, and a very deep voice and stubble. Still she had jump cables and a van so we weren't going to complain. I have now purchased jump cables as I don't feel that relying on there being a handy tranny nearby is a viable long-term strategy. The route today has been very pretty though many of the ...