Day 14 (May 27): All Fixed Up and Somewhere to Go

My parts came in Wednesday morning and Dave at The Zen House had everything repaired within a few hours.  The axle that we received wasn't the right one for my anti-lock brake model, so Paul and I had to run to the nearby town of Gualala to have part of it machined down to fit.  It all worked out and Dave did a great job getting the bike back on the road ASAP.

We continued down the coast and headed towards Yosemite National Park.  We had originally planned to go a little south of San Francisco, but we split off further north through Oakland to make up for lost time.

We got our first exposure to lane splitting (only legal in California) while driving on the interstate through Oakland.  Lane splitting was an absolute rush, and a big time-saver.  It was pretty intense considering how wide our bikes are with all the touring luggage, and there were times when I must've had only inches of clearance.  Pretty much anytime the traffic dropped below about 40mph we moved between lanes and passed right between the congested lanes of traffic.  Most of the cars were pretty good about sharing the road, giving us room when they saw us coming down between the lanes.  We were surprised that there weren't more motorcyclists on the road, considering it was such a time-saver in heavy traffic, and with a narrower bike it would have been downright fun.

We continued east for the rest of the day.  We made decent time and had nice weather, and it was great to get back on the bike and on the road.  We camped just outside of Yosemite for the night.

Days 12-13 (May 25-26): Point Arena

Monday morning we went back into town to the motorcycle shop (The Zen House).  Dave, the owner, already had most of the front end of my bike taken apart and was making a list of parts that needed to be replaced.  He had to leave, but I spent a while on the internet and phone trying to locate new or used replacement parts.  Unfortunately everywhere was closed since it was Memorial Day.  After exhausting all the options, we called it a day and walked down to the wharf for lunch.  We had sandwiches at a cool coffee shop and spent a few hours relaxing on the coast.

We walked back into town and remembered that there was a really cool old art deco theater that had been turned into a single screen movie theater.  They only change the movie once every week or two so we didn't have much of a film choice.  This week they were showing "Angels and Demons," which ended up being pretty decent.

After the movie, we rode back down to the pier for some great pizza.  We also picked up some ice cream which we took back to share with the couple who had taken us in during our unplanned stay in Point Arena.  Dave and Jamileh were great.  They made us feel incredibly welcome and really helped make a bad situation as pleasant as possible.  Since they were both motorcycle riders, we spent a bit of time talking about the great roads we'd all ridden.

The next day (Tuesday) I was finally able to get ahold of people on the phone.  It turned out that new parts would take 7-10 days to arrive, so I turned my attention to salvage yards in the area.  I gradually expanded my search area and after calling 30 or 40 salvage yards finally found some parts from an '04 model in LA that sounded like they would work.  I paid an arm and a leg to have the parts overnighted and hoped they'd make it early the next morning.

Home at last, will try to catch up on posts/photos tomorrow

Back in Texas, only 600mi to go!