Day 2 (Tuesday), Lake Havasu City to Bishop

Footnote for Monday Evening: I've been pretty bad on my "try to eat healthy" objective. McD's for lunch, and worse for dinner. I had good intentions, really. I was trying to avoid Cha-Bones, since Kari and I had had such a good time, I wanted to save it for the ride back.

I wandered in that direction, and spotted an IHOP. Menu looked good, so I decided to get seated. Unfortunatelly, after about 10 minutes, that was all the action I saw. The seating hosted wandered by and seemed surprised I hadn't been asked about drinks. I told her me too, and took my leave.

Across the street was a Del Taco, but I stood there in line behind the only two other people in the establishment, for what seemed like an eternity. It was probably only three minutes, but I was getting the weird "Twilight zone" vibe when there's a lot of people standing around, and nothings happening. Despair in the air, and time seems to stand still.

Across the parking lot, there was light at the end of the tunnel, and the chance to check another item off my "bucket list" of things I intend to do someday, but never get around to it. There it stood: "In-And-Out Burger." A $5.78 meal never tasted so good, (nor had so many fat grams, I'd wager!!). This is an establishment that time forgot. There were only 7 things on the food menu, including three "combo's" of the first 4 items. Burgers, more burgers, and Fries. Care for a heart-bypass with that? (I'm excluding the half dozen or so drink options.) Oh, and the fact that I haven't seen young people move that fast, doing work with purpose in I don't know how long. (Listen to me. I'm even starting to sound old. )

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TUESDAY (For real, now.):

I started out about 7am, just about as the sun was rising. Plans to leave early were forgotten while I enjoyed three helpings of the ham, cheese and egg scramble for breakfast. I put the air pump Leo gave me to good use, and added a couple pounds of air to each tire. How does this stuff get out? I didn't see any nail holes or anything. Hmmm. Note: The pump bounces well, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Weather was beatiful along the way varing from 62 at the start up to 82 as a high, but generally floated in the low 70s. The first half of the ride from Needles to Barstow was very peaceful. Little traffic, (for an interstate), and none of the wind I had been warned about by Deryle. (or so I thought...).

I had one of the more memorable Incidents along the way, about 20 minutes no I-40. There's a great line from a movie (actually a song in a movie), "Always look on the bright side of life." All in all, it could have been a lot worse, and I learned a few things. First, Yamaha luggage isn't as fragile as I had thought. In fact, it holds up reasonbly well to a three foot drop onto pavement while traveling at 70 miles per hour. It would be nice if was designed not to jetison all the contents in the process, but hey, it still latches shut, and latches to the mount. (When you take the time to DOUBLE CHECK IT).

Second thing I learned: You *can* find a policeman when you need one. At least this morning, I did. I heard the weird pastic scraping sound, and glanced behind, looking for some sort of trash I had assumed had latched on to my undercarriage, I was surprised to see my top case and contents strewn in the lane behind me. It took me a few moments to get pulled over, remove my helmet and gloves, and start running back the several hundred yards I had gone past the "drop point." The CHP officer must have either been following me, or within earshot of of the incident, as he had my stuff in a tidy pile on on the shoulder by the time I came running up, gasping for air. I think I managed a "thank you", and he replied "Just don't have a heart attack on me." (Jeez, I don't look old enough to have a heart attack, do I?) He was even kind enough to give me a quarter mile ride back to my bike. I haven't noticed anything missing, apart from my bottle of G2 Sports drink, and possibly a laminated map. I'm sure I'll discover something in the next day or two (or year or two).

I'm sure Kari will empathize with the whole incident, if not gleeful for my admission to the "Been There; Droped That" Club. It's going to take a whole lot of polish to take out the scratches, though. (Or a grinding wheel, to make the rest of it match).

Just as Deryle had predicted, about half way to Barstow, the wind started picking up, and getting a little gusty. It turned out to only last for about 10 to 20 miles for the worst of it. The rest of the day was a little windy, but not nearly as gusty, so not nearly as problematic.

Random thing: I bumped into a guy and his wife at the rest stop about 115 miles south of Bishop, and we got to talking, after he was kind enough to get my picture with the bike. (Luckily, the camera was one of those bounced items which was on the "found" list. Probably helped that it was in it's camera case.) Turns out he knew where Sierra Vista was, since he had been one of the people that surveyed the route to Parker Canyon Lake. (He said the road from Sierra Vista, but I suspect he meant Sonoita, and I didn't want to be rude and correct him.)

Got into Bishop about 2:41PM. Yes, once again 7.75 hours. Drum roll please..... Average speed (you guessed it) was once again almost exactlly 50 mph (50.97 to be precise) despite my efforts to raise the average from yesterday.

For Dinner: Options are: Denny's directly across the major highway of a street, a Sizzler down the sidewalk about 5 minutes, and a couple of others. Salad, I promise!

The Bishop Best Western "Spa" Hotel was so named for a reason, it turns out. I'll have to check it out. Swimsuits anyone??

All for now
~

PS: Note on stock seat comfort: Seat got uncomfortable after an hour or two, and 10 or so seconds of standing every half hour helps. Not walking bow-legged, (yet).