Days 11 and 12

8/18-19/11 Another twofer post.  Last night, I could not get an Internet connection to work, so I didn't write a post.

On Thursday, we had a great day of riding.  Wonderful roads full of curves and elevation changes.  I have worked on my turning techniques, and think I've improved my carving the roads.

We stayed in Big Bear lake, a ski resort located at elevation 7,500 or so feet.  Our room there was nice; it even had a fireplace!  And it had a very good breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and home fries.  It was very good.  Last night, I was not feeling well; very tired and stomach ache, so I skipped dinner (for those of you who know me well, me skipping a meal is unheard-of).  But I just didn't feel like eating.  That made breakfast much better!

It was a very good day of riding.  Noth8ing noteworthy except the roads for the day.  And a piece of very tasty pie.  We learned from a local that the Julian Pie Company makes great pies.  So, for lunch, we headed for Julian so we could try one out.  We ate at a restaurant beside the pie factory, thinking surely they would have the pies.  But on ordering, our waitress told us that their pies were not fresh; that fresh pies were delivered on the weekends.  So we didn't have pie there; but with the factory next door, we went there and had a piece of Apple Mountain Berry pie.  It had apples, boysenberries, strawberries, and raspberries.  With an apple crumb crust on top.  Finally, topped with vanilla ice cream.  It was wonderful! 

Then good roads to Big Bear Lake.  Oh, I almost forgot--we went by an airplane glider park, where a glider was being pulled up to glide.  It went up amazingly fast, and interestingly, the glider was in the air long before the towing plane.  We considered going on a flight, but I nixed it.  The thought of being up several thousand feet without an engine was not something I was interested in doing...  I'm a chicken, I guess.

We left Big Bear Lake this morning; it was 43 degrees when we got up!  Yes, it was 43 degrees.  But it warmed up very quickly, and we never had really high temperatures (about 95 was the high for the day).  The ride today included mountain twisties, valley flats, and freeways.  All went well, and the rides were great.

We stopped for gas, and Gary noticed that none of his headlights were burning.  Low bulb and high bulbs were out!  We decided to ride to our place for the night, San Luis Obispo.  We found that the hotel rates in this town were very high, so we found a mom and pop hotel for a little less and stayed at the Villa Motel. 

Once checked in, we found an auto parts store to buy bulbs for the headlights.  The we tried to install them.  Unfortunately, the access to the headlights is pretty tight, making it difficult to work on them.  Gary got the bulb out just fine, stuck the new bulb in place, and then tried to put the little springy thing in place that holds the bulb in its socket.  Damn, the spring popped out of its holding thing.  So, we fiddled with it for about an hour, failing to get it fixed before dark set in.  We finally decided to go back to the hotel and wait until morning to try again.  

At the motel, he discovered that the high beam was now working!!  Weird stuff. We ordered a pizza and called it a day.  A good day, but frustrating at the end.

Tomorrow--fix the headlight and move on to San Francisco.