Leo_jb
City boy
This past weekend I took my first motorcycle trip since having surgery to repair my ruptured Achilles tendon (happened snowboarding in January). Since it’s a long recovery process and I'm still not fully healed, I couldn’t do anything too challenging and opted for a return trip to Carrizo Plains. Thanks to Benchmark Maps and SFMCjohn I put together a route that avoided freeways and most highways south of San Jose (Uvas, Airline, Peach Tree, Indian Valley, Bitterwater). The roads were spectacular, there was very little traffic, and the surrounding hills were still brilliant green.
Along Uvas Road
San Benito County Historical Park on Airline Hwy. Pretty cool collection of old farming equipment.
Not sure exactly where I took these photos. Awesome roads though.
Don't believe everything you read. One of these signs was also at the start of this road, about eight miles back.
It was pretty late once I got to Carrizo, so I pretty much drove straight through the valley along Soda Lake Road and took highway 33 up to Taft. Since my ankle is still a bit sore and I’m limping slightly, I opted for a hotel instead of camping and splurged on the new Best Western. Kind of regret not camping, but I didn’t want the hassle of the extra gear, food and water. Plus a hot shower and nice bed is sooo welcome at the end of a long day’s riding. There’s a relatively new brewery in Taft, called the Black Gold Brewing Company. I went by to check it out, but they only had two of their own beers on tap, and the food didn’t look very appealing. I ate at Roots Eatery instead, which in spite of its vegetarian-sounding name serves really great barbecue. Actually everything was good there: cornbread, beans, even the coleslaw. And a decent selection of beers on tap. Check it out next time you’re in town.
Anyone else have a thing for old trailers? Someone's home in Taft.
The following day (Saturday) I got to play tourist and explore a bit. The only other time I visited Carrizo was in 2013 with Eldrick (SRAD600), and we had so much fun riding our bikes we really didn’t check out the tourist sites. So this trip I spent some time in the visitor’s center, checked out Wallace Creek, rode to the Soda Lake overlook, and got my boots all muddy on not-really-dry Soda Lake. After that I did a bit of exploring on the roads that lead up to the hills west of Soda Lake. Man, why didn’t I do this earlier, when I had a full tank of gas? Easy 2-track, but really green and pretty up in the hills. The roads appear to go on forever and there’s absolutely no one else around. So many great places to camp and spend the night. Guess I’ll have to save it for next time.
This is kind of hard to make out, but its called Wallace Creek and its located near the north end of Carizzo along Elkhorn Road. Turns out that the San Andreas fault runs north-south along the base of the low hills just east of Elkhorn road. Wallace creek crosses the fault here, and in the 1906 earthquake the creek was split in two and separated by about 30 feet. You can make out the Z shape where the creek was split apart. Well, I can because I was there.
California Condor in the visitor's center. Was killed when it flew into a powerline, which is one of the major killers of these birds.
Standing on the salt flat. Its totally dry at the surface, but your boots tend to punch through the salt into the pretty damp mud below. Its a bitch to get off once it dries too.
Soda Lake from the overlook. If you look closely you can see dust (salt) devils at the far left end of the lake bed.
Panorama from the hills to the west of Soda Lake Road.
My 2011 990. One of only two bikes I purchased new in my life, and my all-time favorite. Still makes me smile every time I ride it. Amazing machine.
Two track up in the hills. Really fun, really gorgeous.
The receptionist at the Best Western let me park my bike overnight in the check-in area, which was pretty cool.
Sunday was the long haul back, again avoiding the freeway until San Jose. More or less the same route back with a few variations, such as Parkfield-Coalinga road. Lunch in Parkfield, a beer in Hollister, dinner and another beer in San Jose, home by 9pm. Long weekend in the saddle, but I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to go back. Maybe late March next year instead of April.
Not sure about this one either. Maybe Cholame Valley or Bitterwater?
Looking west from Parkfield-Coalinga
arty
