HHMC 2010 DAY 4 of 10

Click play and then scroll down and enjoy as you read.


I almost forgot to mention that by this point in the trip we have an unspoken game going on. Not sure how it started, but I suspect someone actually had it stuck in their head to start the trip. Just before we are ready to go someone will start humming or mumbling to themselves some horrible Yacht Rock type song from Kenny Loggins or similarly painful music.
It seems that if you do it just before suiting up to ride it sticks in your head until the next stop which can be hours sometimes. With that being said, enjoy the music with this post. Hope you weren't about to fall asleep or go for an extended ride. ;-)

Where was I? Oh yah, we had about 169 miles to cover and Sonora Pass that I've been looking to do for a long time.


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We woke up to ice on the bikes! All the confirmation we needed that the decision to stay in the hotel was the right one. We walked across the street to a little diner that was great. The cinnamon rolls were the size of a half loaf of bread. The coffee cups were the size that you picture in your head when you REALLY want some coffee. Kind of a bowel of coffee really. We ate until it hurt!

So, being nice riders we rolled the bikes into the street to start them up so we didn't wake up the whole hotel. With the low temps my battery could barely turn the bike over. I've had it happen with my KTM before, but I always had the backup of a kickstarter or the option of a push start. I realized I didn't like the feeling of relying on the battery alone.
No matter, on the second time she just barely coughed to life. We started riding toward the pass and it was COLD.
Just as you turn onto the Sonora Pass road you pass a Marine base. It was impressive to see Black Hawks and some other GIANT helicopters sitting right next to the road we were on. It actually looked like some forward operations base with people running everywhere an trucks cruising around this way and that even though I know this base has been there for a long time. I think these guys have a better view than even the guys on the beach at Camp Pendleton.
I decided that these "no stopping any time" signs should be taken more seriously than the ones at say, Walmart, so we kept keeping on down the road.

All of a sudden the road... "duh duh, duh duh, du, duh" Damnit! I'll kill you flippin Michael McDonald. That song is like cryptonite to having a good day!

So all of a sudden the road starts to turn and I mean turn hard. a 50MPH corner into a 10MPH 180 degree turn. I think it caught us all off guard. You climb up so fast that we stopped at a corner to take in the view.
DOH!

Well, that was the death of my trusty old Canon G9 that had survived 4 abusive years of use. It finally had enough sand and other crap in the telescopic lens that it just died.
On to the back up camera. It's an olympus that doesn't take as good of pictures, but at least it's dust, shock and water proof so it's perfect for the abuse I tend to delve out to cameras.





Looking down at the Marine base.


It just kept getting better. We only saw a couple other cars on the road and I had an eagle fly along next to me and I rode along.


Some of the greatest stretches of tarmac I've seen.


Just over that mountain is Yosemite Valley.


My favorite turn! The panorama feature on the olympus works better on a tripod, but you get the idea!


Still a little snow.






After finishing the pass we headed through Sonora on Highway 49 into Gold Country. This area has a ton of history. Sonora looked like a mini old town Frisco. We headed on to Angels Camp and stopped to check it out.
Angels camp is another old mining town that looks as though it's struggling with the economy. More than half of the town looked like it was for rent.








I'd live here!




We stopped into the only bar we could find in town and started watching drag racing with the locals. Shirley the bartender loves her drag racing and we start chatting with her about where to camp around here. I bet she was a looker back in her day. She keeps offering her place for us to camp out... Hmmm. Well, we decide to hit the road, but she gives us a note with her number that says "Shirley, for sleep." I hope it was for sleep!
We headed on down to another old town called Copperopolis. Gotta love these mining boom town names. We headed to the Old Corner Saloon which has a ton of history and a ton of locals. All of which have their own opinion about where to camp for the night. In the meantime Scuba falls in love again, this time with a physical therapist who is having none of it even though she just broke up with her guy!










We picked one and headed out to find a place to camp. As we pull up it's gated. Basically a dirty pond with some boats and they wanted $15 PER bike to camp. No thanks. It was getting hot now that we were off the mountain and in the valley so we headed to the first place we saw that always has info and welcomes strangers. A bar. At ol Whiskey River the bartender told us how Oakdale was the Cowboy Capitol of the world. More cowboys come from there on the rodeo circuit than any other place... So that's where we were.
Scuba fell in love yet again with the bartender while she was giving us directions to a place to camp so we headed out in search of somewhere cool and shady to stay.

As we took the road she gave us directions about we started riding next to the Stanislaus river. It started getting more and more green. We pulled into the town... or really just a collection of buildings called Knights Ferry. Killer little spot. It seemed to be the only green and shady place in Oakdale.

Their local store/restaurant/bar gave us directions to a place to camp not 50 yards away!

This place had a shat load of hats! The husband and wife owners of the place made us sandwich's for dinner.


Our campsite was right on the river. Not a bad place to be. How do we keep getting so lucky with out campsites. It seems like the less planning we do the better it works out.


We had a nice happy hour riverside with the local folks and a nice fire after that.






After hearing and then talking a ton of BS with the local folk we raised a glass because tomorrow there would only be three riders left.




Okay, to purge the yacht rock because I'm not that mean, enjoy some Old Crow Medicine Show. This is more the type of music I had on my ipod during the trip.