Destination: Snell Campground, Joseph Grant Park, California
Miles: 222
Word of the Day: Side-wind
Critter Count: bunch of deer, vultures and hawks
According to Lyon, we once again had noisy neighbors. I never heard them as I passed out about 9 pm when I went to bed. It seems that when we are camping in tents, once the sun goes down, it's time for Patti to sleep.
We started the day working our way east on county roads until we got to Winters where we crossed I-505 and then I-80 at Dixon. We also made a stop at Walmart while in Dixon, time to pick up supplies. Then we went to Rio Vista so we could cross the Sacramento River on the SR 12 bridge. We crossed the San Joaquin River while on SR 160 which we got off of as soon as we were on the south side of the river. This put us in Antioch for lunch. We took the Deer Valley Rd to Marsh Creek Rd and then took Vasco Road. Here we found the side-wind. Oh baby, it threw me around and buffeted me back and forth, I just hunkered down and held on for the ride. Once we got to Livermore, it was much better.
Once through town we took the Mines Road south and it becomes the San Antonio Valley Road. This goes up and through the Lick Observatory.
Once through town we took the Mines Road south and it becomes the San Antonio Valley Road. This goes up and through the Lick Observatory.
Looking out over the San Jose valley
Yes, that is our road down there
The old touches are cool
Tuesday--Day 9
Destination: Originally Lake Santa Margarita, but ultimately Hollister Hills
Miles: 82
Word of the Day: F&#king BMW
Critter Count: 3 deer, 2 flocks of turkeys
For the last couple of days Wayne has been concerned about a noise and vibration in his engine. We decided to go into San Jose and find the BMW shop. We stopped at a park, looked them up on Google Maps and found that if we headed directly there, we should arrive just as they are opening. Once there, they were kind enough to get Wayne in right away, even though they are currently 3.5 weeks out on their repair schedule. Pays to be traveling.
While they were trouble shooting his bike, I approached a salesman, asking for help. See, my computer wouldn't hold a charge, hence the late posting of the trip, I couldn't get it to turn on. The worst part was that all the return GPS tracks were on it. I didn't want to over load our bike mounted units, so I left all the return info on the computer. I used my best quiver-lip, and it must of worked because although he didn't have Garmin's Basecamp program on his computer, he was kind enough to download and install it. Then I used my gmail account to retrieve all the info I had sent to the crew before we left. I was able to get it all loaded on our units! Wow, what a big help that was, and it reduced my stress level immediately!
After an hour, the service writer comes and gets Wayne and shows him that the main bearing in his bike is failing, you could move the main shaft up and down. Not good, and they could not get to it for almost a month. So as they put it together, we brain-stormed ways to get him home. He really wanted to go to our niece's wedding reception so we looked into a u-haul from San Diego. It meant that he would ride it down there, but the mechanic thought it was OK as long as Wayne paid attention to any additional noises it might make.
Although it only took an hour to get his bike apart, it took 5 more hours before it was put together correctly and we could leave. Now it is 3 PM, rush hour is starting and we are in the middle of San Jose. Argh! And we have a paid reservation at the KOA near Santa Margarita in preparation of going to the Solvang Motorcycle Museum the next day. The exit from US 101 towards camp is 165 miles away, but we decide that we should try it. So I put a route together to get us to SR 87 where we get in the carpool lane and we stay there as we join SR 85 and then US 101. We do about 25 miles of limited access highway, at rush hour before Wayne decides the BMW doesn't like this. We get off at San Martin and parallel the 101 until we can take SR 25-the Airline Hwy. This takes us to Hollister, where we have dinner. I get on google looking for a campsite as we are obviously not making the one I paid for. Deciding not to go to the Thousand Trails park that wanted $65 for a single night in a TENT site, we decided to go to the Hollister Hills ORV park.
Hollister Hills is one of the California State Vehicular Recreation Areas (SVRA). We call them ORV areas in Washington. In California, they are large areas, often containing different types of tracks as well as off road opportunities. Hollister Hills was the first SVRA. It is located in the Gabilan Mountains and features over 6,800 acres of off highway fun. Besides all the trails, the Lower Ranch section where we stayed also has a vintage track, two practice motocross tracks, and ATV track, a TT track, intermediate kids track, beginner area and a track for bikes and ATV's 90cc and smaller. There are 4 campgrounds and multiple day use areas. there are 5 other campgrounds in the other section of the park.
We call it a night, and are grateful that the BMW is still running and we have a safe, low cost place to spend the night.
For the last couple of days Wayne has been concerned about a noise and vibration in his engine. We decided to go into San Jose and find the BMW shop. We stopped at a park, looked them up on Google Maps and found that if we headed directly there, we should arrive just as they are opening. Once there, they were kind enough to get Wayne in right away, even though they are currently 3.5 weeks out on their repair schedule. Pays to be traveling.
San Jose BMW
While they were trouble shooting his bike, I approached a salesman, asking for help. See, my computer wouldn't hold a charge, hence the late posting of the trip, I couldn't get it to turn on. The worst part was that all the return GPS tracks were on it. I didn't want to over load our bike mounted units, so I left all the return info on the computer. I used my best quiver-lip, and it must of worked because although he didn't have Garmin's Basecamp program on his computer, he was kind enough to download and install it. Then I used my gmail account to retrieve all the info I had sent to the crew before we left. I was able to get it all loaded on our units! Wow, what a big help that was, and it reduced my stress level immediately!
After an hour, the service writer comes and gets Wayne and shows him that the main bearing in his bike is failing, you could move the main shaft up and down. Not good, and they could not get to it for almost a month. So as they put it together, we brain-stormed ways to get him home. He really wanted to go to our niece's wedding reception so we looked into a u-haul from San Diego. It meant that he would ride it down there, but the mechanic thought it was OK as long as Wayne paid attention to any additional noises it might make.
Although it only took an hour to get his bike apart, it took 5 more hours before it was put together correctly and we could leave. Now it is 3 PM, rush hour is starting and we are in the middle of San Jose. Argh! And we have a paid reservation at the KOA near Santa Margarita in preparation of going to the Solvang Motorcycle Museum the next day. The exit from US 101 towards camp is 165 miles away, but we decide that we should try it. So I put a route together to get us to SR 87 where we get in the carpool lane and we stay there as we join SR 85 and then US 101. We do about 25 miles of limited access highway, at rush hour before Wayne decides the BMW doesn't like this. We get off at San Martin and parallel the 101 until we can take SR 25-the Airline Hwy. This takes us to Hollister, where we have dinner. I get on google looking for a campsite as we are obviously not making the one I paid for. Deciding not to go to the Thousand Trails park that wanted $65 for a single night in a TENT site, we decided to go to the Hollister Hills ORV park.
Hollister Hills is one of the California State Vehicular Recreation Areas (SVRA). We call them ORV areas in Washington. In California, they are large areas, often containing different types of tracks as well as off road opportunities. Hollister Hills was the first SVRA. It is located in the Gabilan Mountains and features over 6,800 acres of off highway fun. Besides all the trails, the Lower Ranch section where we stayed also has a vintage track, two practice motocross tracks, and ATV track, a TT track, intermediate kids track, beginner area and a track for bikes and ATV's 90cc and smaller. There are 4 campgrounds and multiple day use areas. there are 5 other campgrounds in the other section of the park.
For $10 we got a great site, hot showers and a covered picnic table!
Wednesday—Day 10
Destination:Originally, Reyes Creek. Actually Acton KOA near Palmdale CA
Miles: 350
Word of the Day: exhausted
Critter Count: flock of turkeys
What a great, quiet spot to camp. This morning I designed a route that would connect us with the next planned stop-Reyes Creek Forrest campsite. We started by continuing south on SR 25 until it ended then taking county roads to Paso Robles. Here we deviated to get gas and coffee at Starbucks. When we tried to get back on the original route, it 'blew up' and wanted to route us all the way back to Hollister before going forward! And none of the maps we have are detailed enough to get us back where we wanted to go. so we wandered around, adding about 20 miles to our day before getting to SR 58 which we took east to SR 33. We went by the oil fields and back into the USFS lands, right past our proposed camp at Reyes Creek. It turned out to be 2:30 PM, way to early to stop, especially as there wasn't any shade and the creek was dry, so we continued on.
We checked out Hungry Valley ORV park but again it was too early to stop for the night, and it didn't seem as nice as Hollister Hills. Although it is the second largest OHV park in the SVRA system. It is located west of where I-5 winds through Tejon Pass. this park offers 4,000 acres of open riding as well as 130 miles of developed trails. It also contains a 1.2 mile, Roger DeCoster designed motocross track, a vintage M/C track and a pee wee track. Although there are eleven campgrounds with over 200 campsites, they only have vault toilets and no drinking water or showers. Bummer. In retrospect, we should have camped here. We didn't go by any other camping that day and ended up at a horrible campground near Palmdale. Situated between the highway (or was that a racetrack??) and the train tracks, with no water near the tent sites it was awful. But we couldn't go any farther, we were all exhausted.
We checked out Hungry Valley ORV park but again it was too early to stop for the night, and it didn't seem as nice as Hollister Hills. Although it is the second largest OHV park in the SVRA system. It is located west of where I-5 winds through Tejon Pass. this park offers 4,000 acres of open riding as well as 130 miles of developed trails. It also contains a 1.2 mile, Roger DeCoster designed motocross track, a vintage M/C track and a pee wee track. Although there are eleven campgrounds with over 200 campsites, they only have vault toilets and no drinking water or showers. Bummer. In retrospect, we should have camped here. We didn't go by any other camping that day and ended up at a horrible campground near Palmdale. Situated between the highway (or was that a racetrack??) and the train tracks, with no water near the tent sites it was awful. But we couldn't go any farther, we were all exhausted.
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