The Nomads

Left Long Beach, California 9:30

Temp: 20 degrees C

Sunny

Crusing up the Pacific Coast Highway (#1) on a cool, clear morning through Long Beach, Marina del Rey, Los Angeles, Venice Beach, pulled into Santa Monica Pier for a break and a look-see. Nice Beach! Friday of a national holiday long weekend is a great time to breeze through cities!

A couple of hours later we were headed out again, up past Malibu Beach and Santa Barbara, the whole beach coastline up to Buellton where we finally found a place to stay after trying eight or ten times; a shabby, not so clean flophouse which gouged us for $72! All the other hotels and campgrounds were showing no vacancy.

Traffic bottlenecks at all the beaches on the PCH were horrible but the trick is to use the white line between lanes as the motorcycle lane…follow all the big Harleys right down the middle, three inches on each side for clearance…Yahoooo!

No rush today, no inter-states….just a nice relaxed ride through beautiful countryside in the land of the dedicated conspicuous consumer! Jaguar, Porsche, Saab, Lexus, BMW, Hummer, Mercedes dealers, and once, the “poor boys” on the block, Ford and Chev….Stretch Limos and stretch Hummers! ….private gated estates everywhere the size of some small countries!

No big Fourth of July celebration in Buellton tonight! It’s quiet as a morgue.

Kilometres - Daytrip: 262 km total: 21,807

Gas: $29.80 Tolls: $0

Lodging: Country Lane Motel $ 72