Vacation 2003 PCH and STAR DAYS

Well this years vacation was a combined trip up the Pacific Coast Highway Through California, Oregon and Washington. (Sue rode her V-Star1100 Classic and I rode my new Venture.) Then Visiting with the GodChildren in Olympia WA, We then worked our way down to Lake Tahoe and across the Lonliest Road in America Hwy 50 In Nevada. Up to the Bonneville Salt Flats and over to Ogden Utah for Yamaha STAR DAYS. Then the trip home.. This trip lasted 16 days and covered 4,921 miles of great memories. I hope you like the pics and the write ups. While there are quite a few pics they do not do the trip justice. All the pics are just thumbnails so just click on them for the larger Picture.

Sat July 12th
Have to get up early 3:30 am so we can hit the road and get across the Desert before it gets too hot... Finally on the Road by 5am and manage to get to El Centro California by 9am which puts us just about in the Mountain pass over to San Diego.. 1st objective has been met..We stop for a quick bite at an In/Out Burger then head on to get on I-5 South. We are headed to get as close to the Mexican Border as Possible.. We get off at the last exit and as we circle around to get back on I-5 North We see the border Guards shacks off to our left.. I do beleive we got as close to Mexico as possible without actually crossing the border.. We then head North on 5 and catch 75 with takes you out to Coranado this is a great ride in itself as you are on the coast and can feel the cool Ocean Breeze. This would be with us for the rest of the week as we headed North...Back on 5 we head up to Oceanside where we hooked up with my Brother then out to a local Marina for Supper then a ride back down the 101 to San Diego and back up in time to see our first of many Sunsets in the Pacific Ocean..

Sunday July 13th
Said our goodbyes to my Brother and hit the Road to get through the LA Area..Now let me say I wanted to do this but as others told me I would recommend Starting the PCH Ride North of LA and bypassing all this. A lot of the time you are not close to the Ocean plus there is just a lot of traffic and detours.. We did get through all this however and it wasn't a bad ride just not as great as the rest of the ride.. Once in the Malibu area we took a detour out to Mulholland and did a ride by of the Rock Store.. This is written about in all the MC mags and while the road was great plenty of twists and turns we didn't stop as the closest parking space was farther then I was willing to walk.. Would love to get back there sometime to check it out a little closer..We then headed back to the PCH and continued North up thru Santa Barbera then another lil side Trip to Solvang a Danish community just off the highway a little. From there we continued North to Morro Bay where we stopped for the evening and managed to get a motel room with an Oceanside View Below are some pics of Solvang and Morro Bay.



Monday July 14th
Took off from Morro Bay as it turned out this was the hardest day of the trip even though the ride was great.. We worked our way up the coast thru Big Sur Stopping in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park where Sue got a couple of great Shots of the Waterfall and the ocean there..as you can see in the pics below.. We then worked our way up the coast to San Fransisco and worked our way across the city to Fisherman's Wharf where we met up with Joe Maffei and April.. We visited for awhile and checked out the Sea Lions/Seals on that have taken over some docks again pics below.. Well it was getting after 6 and we still wanted to get to the other Side of SF.. Joe warned us that there wouldn't be any motels available for awhile I just didn't realize how far..The ride North of SF is great but all the twisties with the sun in our eyes and then night was a little more than Sue could stand.. We finally found a place to stay for the night in Fort Ross it was a great place but Sue was totally wasted and could not appreciate the place.



Tuesday July 15th
Well after a good nights Sleep Sue was ready to hit the road again..We headed up the coast Once we hit Legget we took the Side trip to the Tree you can ride through While we both rode through the Tree I only got a picture of Sue as it was a pretty popular place. We then continued up and rode through the Avenue of the Giants. Truly spectacular.. The redwoods were so tall and Dense that I actually lost sattelite reception on my emap gps. We made it up to Crescent City California. Let me tell you though Riding California up the Coast is like crossing Texas on 10 only difference much better Views in California and a lot cooler but it still takes forever.



Wednesday July16th
Today we left Crescent City California and rode to South Bend Washington. The Oregon Coast is great and the road didn't have as many twisties so that pleased Sue a bunch..I didn't get any pics of Oregon on the trip up but I would love to go back and do that again.

Thursday July 17th
We rode up the 101 and looped back around to Olympia where we met up with our god Child and his family.. On the way there we came by this gorgeous lake (Lake Crescent) We also took Friday the 18th to hand around Olympia visiting with them and Sue did clothes while I cleaned the Bikes

Well We are one week into the Trip and have done the PCH now its time to head inland and down towards Lake Tahoe. We ride down to the Columbia River then run along with it through the area known as the gorge. At one Location along the river there was a mass of SailBoarders as the wind just blew down there pretty consistently unfortunately the pics didn't turn out that great of that area.. We crossed back over into Oregon where we got a decent shot of Mount Hood with our bikes in the foreground then a little farther as we topped a hill we saw a Helicopter looked like it was used to fight fires.. took a couple of pics of it as our son is just starting Helicopter Pilot training. We ended up stopping in Lakeview Oregon for the evening



Sunday July 20th Taking off from Lakeview Oregon we headed down into California and over to Lake Tahoe. We stopped in Tahoe city for Lunch and a couple of pics before we rode around to 50 to head down into Carson City and over to Fallon Nevada where we stopped for the evening.



Monday July 21st Headed out on Nevada US 50 The Lonliest Highway in America and I swear it is.. This would be a great place to check out the Topend on any bike. Maybe thats why my friend Kent likes it so much.. We crossed Nevada then took the road up to Wendover Utah which is just outside the Bonneville Salt Flats.. We stopped here for the evening so we would have some time to catch up on Laundry and have a short ride into Ogden in the Morning.



Tuesday July 22nd thru Friday July 25th STAR DAYS in Ogden Utah this Year.. Well we made it over to Ogden in a couple of Hours from Wendover..Then we went over to the fairgrounds and registered for this years STAR Days and to tell you the truth I only took a few pics this year. The pics are the before and after of my bike for the painting I had done some pics of the National Presidents new bike that he just got customized and of some friends running a booth.





Well STAR DAYS had some excellent rides this year and Sue actually did her first SWAMPAZZ ride covering a little over 200 miles on the Utah backroads through the Mountains just oustside Ogden in a little over 4.5 hours then the trivia run the next day which took us on another ride out to the mountains covering just a little over 5o miles... The auction at STAR DAYS raised a little over $45,000 for the Feed the Children Charity. There was a run that delivered over 40,000lbs of food to the local food shelter and the STAR Vets made a run to the VA hospital in SLC to visit with those there. That along with a block party that started out great but unfortunately got rained out Friday night. We had a great time.. Well the journey was almost over we got up in Ogden and hit the road by 0615 hours and manage to make it to Flagstaff 582 miles later at around 4:30pm deciding while we could make it home neither of us wanted to hit the heat of Phoenix so we spent the night in Flagstaff then rode home on Sunday Morning the last 167miles getting home shortly before 10 am..All in all a very memorable trip and I am already in the planning stages for next years East Coast Run. We are hoping to take 3 weeks and travel to the east coast and hit all those states along with New England and visit our Daughter in New York while in the Area.

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