Friday, March 27, 2009
SLO-Mo
I'm at the maximum allowable vacation time, 300 hours, so I've been losing time for the last few pay periods — which is really annoying. Today, I took off to go on a nice, long ride.
I left at 7:19am and blasted straight through to SLO, grabbed some coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Jack in the Box, and filled up down the street. I've always done CA-58 from east to west, and turned north on the 229, so the section from the 101 east to the 229 was new to me. The 229 is always a blast, and I made it all the way into town before I hit any other traffic in either direction. The 41/46 run to I-5 was the same as always - fast and dicey, with on-coming cars making passes right in front of me.
Google routed me on CA-46 all the way to the 99, then south to the 58 in Bakersfield, but the Zumo told me to go south on I-5 to Stockdale Highway and then east. I went with the Zumo. Stockdale Hwy passes through a nice area of Bakersfield, but the other way would probably have been faster.
The 58 is a freeway all the way to Mojave. I'm not sure why they don't do a few minor upgrades and renumber it as I-40. I stopped in Tehachapi for gas and tacos. As I was suiting up to leave, I heard my phone ring, and I answered Carole's call. She wasn't feeling well, at all, but told me to ride my ride anyway. I gassed up, and decided to ride a little further, but to skip San Diego county for the day — I wanted to get back home before Justin left for work, so Carole wouldn't be alone in the house.
I wound up taking CA-58 to US-395. The northern section is a lot like CA-46 west of I-5 — fast, but with a lot of dangerous passing in both directions. The downside of 395 starts when you get to Adelanto, when traffic and signals slow things down to a crawl. I hooked up with a full-dress Harley rider on I-15, and we made very good time over the Cajon Pass. He took I-215, and I stayed on I-15.
Northbound traffic on I-15, and later eastbound traffic on I-210, was at a standstill all the way into Pasadena. I'm not sure why, but heading off to Vegas after work would be no fun today.
The full ride plan was for 720 miles; the final route was 540, but still a bunch of fun.
Posted by bnc at March 27, 2009 08:15 PM