I met Jere and David (and their BMW RT) at the hotel this morning.  Jere had these great padded jeans by...Giali? I think that was it.  They looked really comfortable -- must look into those.  Naturally, the two of us girls got to "bike talk" and prattled on at each other for a while until David good-naturedly pried his wife away.  When we gals get to chattin'....

Speaking of chatting, I stopped at that middle-of-nowhere gas station along I-40 just inside of the Mojave Desert, and got to talking with another Harley rider.  I've been to this gas station before (not surprisingly; it's the only one in this section of the Mojave) and this time it was 85F at 8:30am, complete with a dead baby bird on a picnic table and desert animals eating its eyes out.  Gotta love the desert.  Gas cost $3.60/gal and there's a huge sign inside saying, basically, "hey, don't blame us, it costs a metric fuckton to operate this station, so don't complain or we'll smack you".  Anyway, Fred the Harley guy and I got to chatting, of course.  He's from the Bay Area too and was finishing up a 5-week solo trip around the southwest.  

Crossing into California.

Fred at the High Oasis gas station.

As always, I adored the Mojave.  Dunno what it is about that desert, but it makes me smile.

Mojave Desert, Hwy 58.

I stopped in Tehachapi for lunch, at the Cattleman's grill next to the Chevron.  They make surprisingly good burgers.  

And then I was on the freeways, and then I was home.  Not much to say about slabbing it up the Central Valley -- the roses were in bloom through Wasco, which is always nice (though somewhat ironic, given that they're on prison land...it makes me giggle to see the prison sign with a little emblem of a pretty rose on it).  

I made Peter take me out for sushi and I got pretty tipsy on sake.  And that was my trip.

The whole trip, minus one leg of the Williams Bay trip in WI when I forgot to have the GPS on (~40 miles) (disregard the max speed -- the GPS got confused while crossing a mountain pass in Wyoming. trust me, when fully loaded, the poor thing can barely go 85mph downhill with a tail wind.)

580-something miles today, almost exactly 6000 miles total.

The entire trip.