2010 July 3rd:
Mark:
Happy Birthday Dad! My father would have been 71 today.
Niko and I were woken up by the alarm clock at 5:30am this morning. I nearly smashed the clock trying to figure out how to shut it off. It went off again 10 minutes later. That time I was awake enough to shut it off for good. We slept for awhile longer and then got up and got ready to go.
We went to the office and ate some breakfast. They didn’t offer as much to eat as some of the other places that we have stayed. We ate and then went back to the room to pack and get going.
It was a cool 55°F this morning on the coast and we dressed for cold weather.
Once the bikes were loaded up, we took off and rode for about 30 minutes to get to this biker hang out called Alice’s Restaurant. This was one of those places that another rider had suggested that we go and check out. This was also one of those really good suggestions, thanks Ken. We went in and had a wonderful breakfast (much better than the hotel). The food was great and the service was wonderful. Everybody in the restaurant was friendly and they were asking us questions about where we were from and where we were going. And of course, they all had suggestions of where we should go and roads that we should check out while we were here.
One of these suggestions sounded really good so I grabbed the laptop and actually programmed the road into the GPS. As it turned out it was a very small deviation to where we were actually headed. This suggestion was to take the road up to Mt Hamilton and stop at Lick observatory, which is at the summit. The road was a really winding old beat up bumpy road that most people would avoid at all cost. We loved it.
Niko and I were still dressed for riding on the coast. It was chilly when we left and we had spent the last 2 hours riding in the city with an average of 20 MPH, and now, where we were, it was almost 90°F. We were extremely overheated. Once we were out of the city and on our way up the mountain, we stopped at a park and removed the warm clothes for riding in cold weather and put on heat gear for riding in the heat. This made us much more comfortable.
Once we were at the top of Mt Hamilton and at the Visitor’s Center, we could see all the way to the San Francisco Bay. This was a good 150 mile away. The sky was really clear and you could see for miles in all directions.
There was also a gentleman up there that had a telescope setup to view the sun. His telescope had several different filters in it so that it could be viewed and that was very interesting. We also went inside and had a tour of the original telescope room and learned a lot about what it took to build the whole thing. This telescope was a 36inch refractor and it was built in the 1800s and all of the material for the building was brought by horse and carts. The road is the same road only now it is paved. Today there are several other newer buildings with many more telescopes, but we only looked at the one.
We continued on and rode for a couple more hours, until we reached a farming community named Turlock. The road had a barricade across it and a ROAD CLOSED sign on it. No detour and no way around. We turned around and in doing so Niko hit some gravel and his bike went down. We got him picked up and back on his way. We had some trouble trying to find a way around and I finally figured out where the GPS was going so I just bypassed all of the back roads and we got onto the 99 headed south. We stopped in Merced California for the night.
We unloaded the bikes and then we went to have some dinner. We went back to the hotel and I worked on the blog while Niko went outside by the pool. That is all for today, Thanks for Reading. Good Night.

Niko:
I woke abruptly, thinking the world was ending until I realized it was just an alarm clock. We slept longer and eventually got up to go to breakfast. Breakfast was waffles, and hardboiled egg. We packed up and polished our visors (which were filthy).
We dressed for cool weather and headed out down a curvy, calm road. Before long, we reached the famous, yet hidden, Alice’s Restaurant. We went in and had a better breakfast than earlier. I had fried eggs, sausage links, and hash browns.
The people there were so friendly and talkative, making suggestions and asking questions. Even the toddler behind me was friendly… she spoke full sentences and a wide range of English and couldn’t have been older than two!
One person gave us a new road to ride and when we finished, we decided to go put it into the GPS. I noticed that next to my bike sat three KLR 650’s, one black, and two blue. I went to use the restroom and on my way back, I talked with a beautiful biker girl, who wanted to sign me up for a motorcycle insurance deal called “BAM”.
I said I was in a hurry but her reply was priceless: “you don’t look hurried. You don’t have time for me to BAM you?!” as she said it, she squeezed her chest with her hands. She had her sales pitch down, but I was in a rush and turned her down and stunned her. I do believe she actually watched me leave, out of shock.
We crawled through downtown San Jose and surrounding city in 1.5 hours! We were steaming hot from our cool weather clothing and stopped at a county park to change. The ladies up front let us in without charge to use the restrooms. We felt a lot better after changing and opening vents on our jackets, so, on we moved.
We rode up curves and switchbacks so tight we saw our own tail-lights! I was in first gear so as to stay on my side of the road. Cliffs on the roadside went down hundreds of feet and there was no room for error.
When we arrived at the top of the mountain and pulled into Lick Observatory’s lot, we noticed a burning smell, we looked at my bike to check the luggage and saw smoke coming from the exhaust area. I lifted the bag away and liquid melted plastic oozed down from in-between the bag and the side fairing.
We removed all of the baggage to keep from having a fire, and only then realized that the side fairing was what had melted, not the bags.
We toured the observatory and talked with the people there. Thanks all for your concern, assistance, and stories. We packed back up and went down the other side of the mountains. I coasted to conserve gas and keep my muffler cool.
At the base of the mountain, we came to a rural farm town consisting of cows, olive trees, palm trees, and the occasional house. After miles, the road was closed without detour or warning. When turning around, I slid on what I thought was pavement, but was color matched gravel. Down I went and slid, getting up as soon as I stopped moving.
We inspected the damage to find my add-on pegs were bent, crash bars scratched, and knee pad cloth slightly torn. No really big deal. We kept moving somewhat aimlessly, but ended up in Merced CA.
We found a Days Inn to stay at, and an In-N-Out burger to eat at. The pool was way too cold, so I took a shower in the mini-stall and began work on the blog. Thanks for reading, goodnight, it’s late, and I must sleep.