We did our last minute checks, fueled up our bikes, checked the tires and did our pre-flight safety checks and were ready to take off at 9:20 AM Saturday morning. We started of our adventure with our exodus from the S.F. Bay Area. We had decided not to go for a scenic round about ride determined to make this trip about camping and not about riding. So we were taking the quickest and most remote route available. Traffic was surprisingly heavy for a Saturday morning journey out of the Bay Area.
Again I was surprised at how accomplished Carole had become in her riding skills. Our styles have blended nicely. She was comfortably following me on any roads at any speed and I have learned to truly enjoy a moderate pace, realizing that the scenery around us is just as thrilling as the sensation 105 horsepower has to offer on a motorcycle. Carole has become good as a lead rider as well as a follower.
We were both listening to our respective iPods on our sound systems as we rode the freeways eastward. Our chatter on the CB was minimal as we took in the morning sites including the windmill power generates on the I-560 grade heading down into Tracey. After a short jaunt northward on I-5 we caught State Hwy 4 eastward that would lead us directly to Calaveras Big Tree State Park in the Sierras. I was looking forward to seeing what Hwy 4 had to offer. We had ridden 120 to the south into Yosemite, and Hwy 88 to the north up to Carson Pass and Lake Tahoe. But we had never experienced this road right in between the two.
An odd occurrence with Carole's iPod that we had experienced before manifested itself again on this leg of the journey. We have her iPod mounted in the left glove box on the ST and use the auxiliary input on her handlebar mounted CB (
JMCB-2003) to send the music to her head sets. After about 2 hours of riding in warm weather the iPod will lock up, leaving the screen illuminated until the battery completely runs out (which takes only 20 minutes or so with the screen illuminated). All of the controls are locked up on the iPod and there is no way to reset it until the battery empties out and we put it back on the recharger. We are not sure if the issue is caused by heat in the glove box on her bike (mine has no problem, but there is no heat in the glove box) or if there is an issue with the CB. I've let her use my iPod on her bike and we end up with the same issue. I'm currently putting together an external mount system to see if that resolves the issue. The head tech at J&M has never heard of such an issue and cannot figure out where the CB would cause the issue. (A couple of months later I figured it out. The iPod's hard drive cant handle the vibration on the ST. We have since purchased a Nano that works just fine)
We initially had planned to stop for a meal in Stockton but didn't happen by any decent looking restaurant as we passed through. No big deal, we figured we would find another place down the road. No big deal, we weren't really hungry. We just needed to kill an hour since we couldn't check-in to our campsite until 2 PM. We rolled into Farmington where we saw a roadside bar and grill with a couple of Harley's parked in front. We stopped, parked our bikes and went inside to try their fare. This place was a serious greasy spoon where the alcohol took precedence over the dining. We checked out the menu, saw that there was nothing remotely vegetarian, and decided to head on up the road. Angels Camp would probably have a better choice of dining options.
The road to Farmington had been the typical straight two lane highway you'll find everywhere in California's agricultural regions. However, shortly after Farmington the roads began to wind around a little bet more as we began our gradual ascent into the Sierra foothills. About 30 or 40 miles west of Angels Camp the road actually became nice and technical. Traffic was heavy so we couldn't "air it out," yet it was moving fast enough for us to enjoy the twisties and curveys. A couple of checks in my rearview mirrors during the tighter sections revealed that Carole was doing more than just holding her own. I swear, watching her ride is like watching an advertisement video for Honda! Again, I can't begin to describe how skilled a rider she has become.
Too soon for my motorcycling tastes, we arrived at Angels Camp and found a roadside diner in the middle of town. We enjoyed some really good omelets and then geared back up and headed on up Hwy 4. The ascent into Calaveras Big Tree State Park was absolutely gorgeous. The subtle change from the grasslands of the foothills to the alpine coolness of the Sierras always amazes me. But the climb was rapid and the senses were treated to the sights and smells only found in the high Sierras. Once again too soon we arrived at the entry to the campground.
We ended up having to pay extra for a second vehicle (its an ambiguous world for motorcyclists... some places look at two bikes as equal to one car, others call a vehicle a vehicle and two bikes are the same as two cars.) But even though we were a half hour early for our check-in time the ranger at the booth told us which campsite we would be using and gave us a map to help find it. Four miles up the road we pulled into our camp site, awe struck by the huge giant sequoias all around us.
I un-strapped the backpack from the back of the GL and hoisted it on my back for the long 15 foot hike to our campsite. Carole and I found a nice flat spot nestled between several sequoias and decided it would be the perfect spot for our tent. Mind you, our tent has several warning in its setup instructions warning you not to erect your tent beneath any trees. There was no place in the hundreds of acres of this park that was not covered by trees. So this spot was perfect.
Carole and I are both a bit anal retentive when it comes to doing things by the letter. But it works for us as we double check each other and read instructions out loud. Since this was the first time we had erected our tent we went about it methodically while I timed our operation to get an idea how long it would take us in our future tour across the USA. Coleman did us a big favor by sewing their instructions right into the seam of the carrying case for the tent so that you would never lose them. Carole started off reading the instructions with me double checking the illustrations as we setup our tent. Surprisingly, the time to setup the tent, air up the mattress, and setup our sleeping bags only took 25 minutes! I sort of figured we must have done something wrong, it just went too easy. We did end up with an extra pole that goes somewhere, but re-reading the instructions several times revealed nothing. We checked out every part of the tent to see what we had missed and found nothing. To this day we still don't know what that extra pole is for but we keep packing it with us. It probably was an extra part that got stuck accidentally into our package, but we are both reluctant just to let it go.
Whew, we were setup and ready to rock! Okay, we were setup and ready to do what campers do so we decided to check out the hiking trails. After a short talk with the camp host (a volunteer that permanently resides in a camper at one of the camping sites) we decided to take a 1.2 mile hike to the North Grove and see the Discovery tree near the park entrance. The road would take us 4 miles, the trail 1.2 miles. We walk 1.2 miles in some of the malls we shop in so we figured it would be no big deal. It probably would have been easy except for the steep climb and ruggedness of the trail. From our campsite within the first quarter mile of the trail you gain 450 feet in altitude. The trail is covered with rocks and loose dirt and sometimes mud. But our spirits were high as we made our way to the North Grove parking lot to see the Discovery Tree and other giant sequoias.
After taking a couple of photos we decided to head back toward camp. The hike back down the steep hill was even tougher than the climb up. My knee caps felt like they were lubricated with sand, each step more jarring to my joints than the previous. Carole on the other hand was bounding along like a mountain goat. At one point Carole had pointed out a tree stump that someone had apparently taken quite a bit of time ot etch an intricate series of cross hatches on the top surface. I was staring at it while walking, trying to determine if it was done with a pocket knife or a chain saw when I stepped into a deep hole just wide enough to accept my foot. For the only time I can ever remember I simply relaxed my body and let the fall happen. I got up muddy on my right side but no worse for the fall. In the past a fall like that would have ended with a sprained ankle, a blown knee, and a broken leg. As it was, the only thing bruised was my ego.
As we continued on I had forgotten that Carole has a much higher metabolism than I do and it constantly requires refueling. I'm just the opposite with a very slow metabolism that can keep going, and going, and going like the Energizer Bunny. Not considering this issue I started thinking about continuing on to the Stanislaus river, another 1.4 miles down the trail. We got to the decision point and I brought it up to Carole. A look in her eyes should have had me blowing off the idea, but I really wanted to see the class 4 and class 5 rapids that we had read about (the old kayaker in me will never go away). Without much resistance at all Carole agreed to visit the Stanislaus River and we bound off toward the eastern region of the hiking trail.
Our trek took us through denser forests with the trail initially gently sloping downward. We followed a gentle babbling brook for quite a ways through woods that reminded me of the Black Forest in Germany. Soon we heard rushing water and figured we were nearing the Stanislaus. But alas, the rushing water was our little brook turning into a series of waterfalls (hidden by the dense foliage) as our hiking trail again descended into just short of a mountain climb. We entered series of switchbacks that were extremely frustrating to me. Seeing the same scenery over and over again as you descend the wall of a canyon is paradise on a motorcycle but about as boring as it gets on foot. Carole grew more silent which I knew meant she was not having any fun nor remotely enjoying any part of the activity. But we were more than halfway to our destination so I kept walking. I offered to Carole to just say the word and we would turn around a walk back.
We descended a particularly steep part of the trail (slid down the trail rather than hiking) and came out of the trees onto a section of road we had to cross. It was getting late, around 6 PM and we could see that the steep descent continued on the other side of the road. Carole was depleted of energy and my legs were beginning to feel like lead. We decided at that point to turn around and climb our way back up to camp. I led the way as Carole's silence let me know that she was not in the mood for any light banter and kidding around. It was now a survival hike.
We arrived back at camp around 7:30 PM. Our legs were so tired it was a chore and a feat of determination to just keep putting one foot in front of the other until we got to the camp host's site to buy a bundle of firewood. We then hiked the 50 feet or so (felt more like half a mile!) to our campsite. Carole was still in her "I'm not having fun" silent mode as we brought out our pack full of food to regain some nourishment. I wisely volunteered to walk to the restroom area to use the faucet to wash our fruit while Carole sliced the bread and cheese for our dinner. By the time I returned Carole's spirits were much improved after gulping down an energy bar. I opened a bottle of Merlot while Carole sliced up an apple and peach to sit along side of the grapes. In no time at all we were enjoying a feast that fit perfectly with our needs. This was our perfect meal at a camp site... no cooking, lots of nourishment and flavors, and no mess to cleanup afterwards.
While nibbling on our meal I built a fire in the campsite fire ring, surprised that I was able to get it going easily with just some pine needles and a few twigs. Soon we had a raging fire in our ring heating up the air around us that had suddenly cooled off by 30 degrees or more. We laughed, drank wine, nibbled on our feast, and took a short walk around the camping area as the stars began showing up in the sky. At close to 10:00 PM we decided to call it a night. I zipped our two sleeping bags together into one giant sleeping bag (we still enjoy cuddling at night) and we fell asleep atop our air mattress inside our roomy tent.
We awoke quite a few times during the night mainly due to the strangeness of our surroundings, but there were some drunks hooting and hollering until the wee hours of the morning that made it tough to initially fall asleep. The air temperature had fallen to somewhere in the 40's but our lightweight sleeping bags kept us plenty warm. Occasionally I would shift my foot to a new location and feel how cold the sleeping bag was that wasn't near our bodies. Our body heat was captured nicely by the sleeping bag keeping us toasty warm. Now I understood why a sleeping bag would cost $120.00. It was amazing how warm we were under covers that were so light I felt like nothing was covering me at all. But the dead silence of the forest broken occasionally by a falling pine needle was hard to sleep through. Eventually our exhausted bodies relented allowing us to capture enough rest for the next day.