Friday–Sunday, 11–13 Sep 2009
Marc writes:
Friday
I wasn’t feeling very well, having cought a cold from my grandson. Because of that I didn’t go to breafast with the group the Sunday before the ride and didn’t get any other chance to talk to other riders. I didn’t know who, if anyone, was going camping with me. I left my house Friday morning and rode to Burlingame, getting there about ten before seven. At seven there were no other riders. I left Burlingame thinking that perhaps this campout I’ll be alone.
Richard was at breakfast the Sunday before the campout, but no one he talked to planned on joining the campout. He left his house near Palo Alto thinking that perhaps he’d be camping alone. We got to the Coozy Cup for breakfast within 10 seconds of each other. Bob was there, waiting. He wasn’t goint to join us for the ride having grandparent duties later, but thought there was no reason not to join the “Friday Morning Breakfast Club” for breakfast.
Richard, after breakfast
Bob, has to go home
After breakfast we said goodbye to Bob and headed south on SR 25. After a brief stop at the intersection of SR 25 and SR 198 we rode into Coalinga for gas and a rest stop. Richard used the stop to load up on cafine as he found himselft getting drowsy riding into Coalinga. Oh-oh… the boring part was yet to come.
Richard follows
The road ahead
These pictures are from the stretch between Holister and Coalinga. There’s not much worth the effort of a photograph between Coalinga and Visalia. We did have to pull over once so I could remove my helmet cam… the glue on the mount broke free, leaving the camera dangling in the wind by its safety strap.
The next planned stop was for gas and supplies in Three Rivers. Supplies is a fancy name for beer. We had everything else we needed. The beer would help cool us off as the temperatures the last 75 miles stayed between 95 and 100. Hot!
Life is rough
The great sites in Buckeye Flat campground (numbers 18 and 19) were taken. We wound up in number 25, the same site I’ve been in the last two or three visits. Tents went up, then beer, fruit, cheese, and other snacks were consumed. Finally the tarp was put up to give us some shade.
Skeeters
cool water
Photographers at work
The beer took care of cooling the insides, but it was still plenty hot on the outside. We walked down to the river to splash some cold water on hand, feet, and face.
backpackers dinner
Camp visitor
Before it got dark we started cooking a light dinner. We
didn’t need much more than that after the earlier snacks. I settled for
a can of chicken and sausage gumbo soup with a side of Tabouli.
Richard went with the dehydrated meal in a bag. His clean-up was easier than mine. So what!
We did have a camp visitor during the dinner hour. He was re-routed in a direction away from the tents. That seemed to work as we never saw the fellow again. Later in the evening we had more visitors – a mother and daughter from Germany on a tour of National Parks in the west looking for a place to park their rented SUV. There was enough room to squeeze the SUV into a spot behind the bikes. That was their home for the night.
The camp was full and noisy with Friday night revelers. We were in our sleeping bags by 10 PM. That’s about the time that the parties started going. The sounds of one scream alerted us to the presence of a bear. Or not. We didn’t see anything.
