Monday, March 21, 2005

Amador to Dakar to, um, King City?

<>So it’s been a while since I’ve updated this thingy.
Is it boring to say I’ve been busy?
Last weekend we rode up to gold rush country, Amador County, Sutter Creek to be exact. Turned out that my folks were also there, so it was a neat little convergence on my grandparents’ house. It was wonderful to see them. My grandma took out some old pictures of my mom when she was probably my age or slightly younger. Neat stuff. Sunday Paul and I tooled around on our motorcycles through the little towns and country roads. Could have spent a few days doing that, but just had a few hours. The roads up there are wonderful. Hardly any potholes, very little traffic, and the scenery is incredible. Rolling green hills and layers of far off fog, cows and goats and chickens, ponds, barns, little spurts of flowers in tiny twisting creeks. Yeah. Timing was perfect, and we stopped off at Daffodil Hill, which was just in bloom. A few acres of daffodils, peacocks, chickens, and a donkey and rabbit. Nice. Rode a bit more, found some fun historical landmark plaques, and then headed home again.

-The SV tires track atrociously on rain grooves. I have to remember never to buy tires with tread lines going around the tire parallel to the rain groove. I almost pulled over to pull the thing apart on the way to Sutter Creek, I was so sure there was something wrong.-

Thursday we went to see the SFMC meeting, and Paul was nice enough to let me ride on the back so I could drink some stout. And drink I did.

Friday we went to Saha , a little nice-ish restaurant near my place. We’ve been there three times now, and like it rather well. I recommend it. But check that they’re open before you go, since we’ve been disappointed at least twice by their schedule or a rental. The food is delicious. The wait staff is friendly, but kind of ditzy. They brought me something totally different from what I ordered, but it was delicious. Chocolate cake was omigod. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

Saturday we went back to SFMC for a slideshow presentation by a guy who did the Dakar rally. It was a really neat talk and the photos of the guy’s bike with the front wheel suddenly sunken into the sand (on several occasions, apparently, with a trip over the handlebars each time) were really fun. Wish I could have stayed to chat with all the folks who came out of the woodwork, but we had to go eat.

Yesterday I unfortunately caught wind of some stupid bad idea endurance rally. I say unfortunately because now I really want to go. Really really. And of course it’s a bad idea. I have a 400 single dirtbike, and my aim here is to do 1000 miles in 24 hours and get points and whatnot. My boyfriend is way more reasonable than I, and trying valiantly to talk me out of it. I suppose it’s mainly because I am pained by the fact that I can’t do the Sheetiron this year, but I’m stubbornly interested in this.

Upcoming:
1.) Seattle
2.) Italy
3.) China
4.) Stupid Bad Idea Endurance Rally

Open to other stupidity after that.

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