Fitwife: Born To Be Wild, Sort Of.....

Here's how it played out....

Thursday before Memorial Day Weekend:

Rob: "What should we do this weekend? Feel like doing something FUN?"
Me: "Yeah! What should we do??" (prepares list of possible ideas: hikes, local events/art shows/pub crawling in the city? We can't decide.)

Friday before Memorial Day Weekend:

Rob: "What do you think about renting that Harley? They still have the deposit from the time we cancelled......"
Me: "Yeah! Great idea! Check on that!" (ha ha ha...there's no way there will be a bike available for the weekend.)
Rob: "We got a bike, we're picking it up tomorrow morning for the weekend!"
Me: "Oh cool!" (oh craaaaap!)

You see, I've never been on the back of a motorcycle, except for maybe the one time I got a ride home, ok twice I've gotten a ride home from a party on the back of a motorcycle...once when I was 15 and once when I was old enough to know better. But anyway....

If you know me, you know that I'm afraid of pretty much everything. In particular, I'm afraid of riding on motorcycles. It's just so dangerous! But I still try to do the things I'm afraid of, even if I can't breathe very well and I need to constantly google map the nearest hospitals, just in case. It kind of sucks, but that's just how I am. So this would be no different. I was excited, and scared. I knew that Rob has really missed riding. He had a motorcycle for 8 years before he even had a car.

So we decided to take off, no hard plans, just let a few people know we were going to be cruising around....and let the adventure unfold!

We went early Saturday morning to California Motorcycle Adventures in Mountain View and picked up this sweet 2010 Harley Davidson Electra glide:

I put the helmet on and, of course, I got claustrophobic immediately and couldn't breathe. But I kept my mouth shut (literally, the helmet was so tight, I couldn't open my mouth!). I really wanted to do this. Mostly for Rob. But also, what woman doesn't have that fantasy of being a biker chic? So off we went. And I wasn't scared! Well, there was the initial moment of panic, shortness of breath, lifting and lowering of the visor to check on air flow, reduced to a more generalized fear of crashing and dying, etc. but it was quickly replaced by an amazing feeling of freedom. I reached a point within the first couple of miles where, as I held on to Rob, I could just "feel" that he knew what he was doing. So I was ok. He would take care of me. Now I could just relax and enjoy the ride. And what a ride it was! We had the most spectacular weekend ever! I know I say that a lot...but this was really...spectacular!

We headed over Hwy 84 to the coast and headed down Hwy 1 to Moss Landing where we met our friend Tony and his daughter Becca at Phil's Fish Market:

After lunch, they took us on a ride through the back roads of Salinas, Watsonville, and Elkhorn Slew, and we ended up at Gizdich Ranch, a berry farm where you can order pie by the slice, or a whole pie to go!

We opted for the Olollieiberry Pie to go and headed back North, through the Santa Cruz mountains on Hwy 9, to our friends' home in the mountains.

Thanks Dave and Liz, Jac and Seren! A lovely deck, a fire, some burgers and pie, (a little booze!) a cabin in the redwoods, and our little navigator helping plan the next day's route! Perfect.

Our favorite Mountain Sprite, Seren!

And off we go!

The next day we decided to head back South, then East through Carmel Valley and over to Pinnacles National Monument.

Carmel Valley, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I think I even choked up a little bit cruising by some of the oldest ranches in California history. My pictures don't do it justice.

Road to Pinnacles! (the small, winding roads were the best!)

7 pm, we rolled into Fremont. But we just couldn't stop riding. SO, we went straight past our house, up through Niles Canyon, and into Pleasanton to have dinner at one of our old favorite Mexican restaurants.