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.
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