Donner's Pass. Note the snow in the background.
Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe
Well, I don't know how many guys actually read this blog if any. I honestly don't know the last time I read someone's blog unless Ditte was showing me something. With that being said, unless you are a motorcycle enthusiast you may not understand some of this.
So I flew up to Ben and Leslie Ashby's house on Thursday night to Sacramento for a little "Mancation" that Ben and I have been trying to plan for a while. Our objective: motorcycle overload! Luckily Ben has two street bikes (Honda Magna and a Suzuki Bandit) that we swapped back and forth. We left the Ashby's house on a Friday morning just in time for record breaking heat temperatures!
I think most you know that I have been riding dirt bikes since I was around 9 years old, but I don't really have a lot of experience riding street bikes. I have always been hesitant towards street bikes and haven't had a huge desire to ride street until Erik and I rented Harley's in Kauai. I loved it! Of course on Kauai the fastest speed limit on the whole island is like 45mph. So I had to tell Ben (a CHP officer that still rides a motorcycle to work) to make sure and not ditch me in any traffic splitting cars. Leslie's uncle Dana also went and they were really good about it until this little moped looking motorcycle past us! At the next gas stop he informed me that if a moped past us again I was on my own! We laughed about that for a while. That's when we got off of the highway and into the mountains! I am not a speed freak, but man do I love working a motorcycle back and forth in curvy mountain roads! That's what made the whole trip worth while to me.
As we are climbing the mountains towards South Lake Tahoe the temperatures starting dropping and it was just perfect. In some spots there are still 4 feet of snow piled up there. I have never been to Lake Tahoe and now understand the phrase, "Help keep Tahoe blue". I was blown away by how beautiful it was up there and how clear the water is.
We had lunch there and then moved on our way around the lake (it's freakin huge!) and went through Donner's Pass (lots of snow up there too) and worked our way back into the stinking hot Sacramento valley.
We went and saw "Iron Man" that night which was pretty good. We then went to Infineon Raceway just outside the bay area to watch a super bike race (streetbikes) but pleasantly found out that there was a supermoto track as well as a motocross track there! They had shuttles running back and forth between all the tracks and just had a blast. Geoff Aaron, a 10 times trials champion (look him up on youtube, you will be amazed what he can do on a bike!) was there doing a trials show which I just kept shaking my head because I couldn't believe the stuff he does on a bike! Curtis, Ben's son, came with us and loved it too. On the way back we stopped by Ben's work (the CHP Academy) and Ben showed me around a little bit. Ben left me and Curtis alone for a few minutes, and when he came back, Curtis and I had hid ourselves and blasted Ben with two nerf guns that he had at his desk! I am glad now that no one else came through that door, because I might have been in a little bit of trouble! Enjoy the pictures. Thanks Leslie for letting Ben play with me!
