Saturday March 20, 2004
So on the last day of the conference, Ed flew to LAX and took the shuttle to the conference hotel to join Dave and Barry. He used the opportunity to visit a PRC vendor in the last hour of the conference. When the booth packing was done, the three took a taxi to the EagleRider motorcycle rental agency, about two miles from the LAX Hilton.
Barry and Ed had shipped their riding gear and other items to the EagleRider site. While the paperwork was being sorted out, we unpacked the boxes. Ed had made a replacement visor for his helmet and soon had it swapped for the old scratched one.
When the paperwork was done, we set to packing the motorcycles. Ed noticed that his handlebars were not well aligned with the front wheel, so the EagleRider folks made the adjustment.
Dave rented a Road King. Ed had a Dyna LowRider. Barry had an 883 Sportster. Dave had significant lockable boxes on the sides, but Ed and Barry had small leather bags, one of which was substantially consumed with the three locks (cable lock, disc lock, and fork padlock). We all strapped things on top.
The time must have been around 4:00 PM when we cranked up the engines and headed out for the Los Angeles freeway system. Dave led, followed by Ed and then Barry. We took the 105 east to the 605 north to I-10 east. Fortunately, it was a Saturday and the traffic was probably somewhat lighter than a weekday. Still, there were times when we were in stop and go traffic. We had been riding for nearly an hour before I-10 dropped to lower than six lanes each direction. We were all happy not to face the prospect of returning to the Los Angeles EagleRider location.
As darkness was falling, the snow on the San Bernardino Mountains was visible off to the left. Last year Dave and Barry attempted to take the ridge road on the return trip to LA and learned that it closes in the fall and doesn't open until April or so. The San Bernardino Valley has high winds and we passed hundreds of wind generators turning at about 20 RPM. The wind would have been to our back and apparently steady, so we didn't feel it.
About 100 miles east of our starting point, we turned north off I-10 onto CA62. The Sportster fuel tank is smaller than the other two, so we had stopped earlier for Barry to fill up. A few miles north on 62, Ed pulled around and led us off to the side. He was concerned about his fuel level. By now it was totally dark. We dug out a flashlight and he and Dave concluded that he'd probably make it. It wasn't obvious by the map that we'd find fuel in the coming 40 miles of mostly desert. Worst case would be that if Ed would run dry, we'd look around for a container and siphon some from the Sportster. So we decided to press on rather than look for fuel there. The situation resolved itself in another couple miles when we came to a gas station.
The rest of the ride for the day (now night) was uneventful. We stopped at the first motel in Twentynine Palms, checked in, and then headed to the Mexican restaurant a bit further down the road. The third Gringo took the picture.
150 Miles for the day.