Up with the sun this morning and a fairly early start in an effort to beat the heat and get home at a decent time. Very doubtful that Rich will be able to beat the traffic since he has so much city riding to do to get home but Robin and I shouldn’t have too much problem. Hwy 99 kinda parallels Interstate 5 southeast through central California. We were on Hwy 99 which more of a “rural” route. Interstate 5 doesn’t really even go through any “towns” after you leave Sacramento until you get down to Los Angeles. Anyway – along with rural goes farm equipment on the roads. There was a livestock trailer at one of our gas stops that was leaking the contents of it’s floor all over the ground. The odor was enough to make you gag and it took some effort to avoid the “slick” left in it’s wake on his way out of the station! We were making pretty good time on old 99, in fact on this whole trip I don’t think anyone really passed us on the road. That is until we got our tail feathers clipped in Bakersfield. A motorcycle officer for the CHP thought we should have a little chat that included a reminder that 80+ mph in a 65 mph zone was a little too fast. We thanked him for the warning and were back on the road looking for the local A&W because it was HOT and one of those is kind of a ride tradition. The A&W that my GPS took us to (only one exit south of where we got pulled over) had turned into a Popeye’s Fried Chicken place. Nothing else really on our way before we were going to be going our separate ways. SO – one last tank of gas, we said our goodbyes and we were on the last leg of this trip. The cooler air going up over the Grapevine was very nice and although it was hot in the valley, it wasn’t that bad.
Home for a little over a week now and then I’ll start on the next 3 corners of my little adventure. Should be pulling out of here on April 18th – see you all again then…..
Last leg of this trip. Leaving Bakersfield, CA – April 8, 2014