The Ride to California

As I mentioned earlier we did an Iron Butt ride on the first day. The Iron Butt organization actually has a whole slew of different rides that one can be certified for but the 'entry level' and most basic ride is called the Saddle Sore 1000. Basically it's 1,000 miles in under 24 hours. In the United States with our massive Interstate system that isn't too hard to do - assuming you can stand riding for 1,000 miles in the first place. The certification requires that you provide some very specific proof that you did indeed ride the whole 1,000 miles:

• Signed witness forms for the start and end of the ride
• A computer generated time/date for the start and end as well as for every fuel stop along the way
• Maps showing the route
• A few other odd's and ends

We took off at around 5:30AM CST and planned to reach Kingman, AZ between 9:00PM and Midnight. The first leg took us all the way to Childress, TX before refueling. The K1600 can easily do 225 - 300 miles on a tank depending on how you ride. My knees and butt however like to stop more often than that. From Childress we we went on to Amarillo, then Santa Rosa, Albuquerque, and Gallup, NM. From there it was to Flagstaff and finally Kingman ,AZ.

We arrived at about 11:00PM at the hotel and checked-in to get our timestamps. We got the old gal working the desk to sign our witness forms but I'm not sure she really 'got it'. If the Iron Butt guys actually call her to verify we were there I'll be shocked if she remembers us.

Our pile of proof I need to mail in...

Day 2 was easier since it was more like 600 miles. That is until...

The last 70 miles or so was a ride up Hwy 1 on the coast into Carmel. What neither of us knew was that Hwy 1 south of Carmel is not anything like it is on the North side of the city. The northern part is just a highway with mostly gentle sweepers. On the south however it's tight, twisty low speed switchbacks on the cliffs. If we had known that we would have gotten there before dark!

Riding that road at night was a serious bit of work. It was cold, pitch black and to top it off there were deer on the road. I nearly ran a couple down but one rule I never break on the road is to never out-ride my sight lines. I was able to spot the deer just in time to brake hard and swerve to the side. The rest of the ride was just plodding through the dark twisty night until we reached Carmel.

Our cottage was not available until the next night so John and I stayed at a cool little European style hotel in town called the Normandy Inn. We had to park in the loading zone out front since the parking inside was full but the room was warm and I slept great.

At least we can't say the ride up to now had been boring and it was only two days in.