South of Sunnyside

For each of our church’s four years of existence, the congregation has packed up and headed to the coast for a weekend of camping. This year, we changed locations, heading south to El Chorro Regional Park just outside of San Luis Obispo. (This year’s trip was my first on the Harley, described in detail in an earlier post.)

A few highlights from the trip (mostly related to food):

Harris Ranch

When I worked for the food bank, I was able to get Harris Ranch to donate five gallons of soup for fundraiser, but this was our first stop on the ride out. The breakfast is great; I highly recommend the bacon (they’re very generous with it).

Parkfield (the earthquake capital of the world)

I don’t know if we saw more than three people in the town, but I have to bring Kim back to the inn for an overnight stay. It’s a beautiful area, and evidently the place to experience an earthquake (whatever that means).

San Miguel Mission

We only rode by, but it’s gorgeous.

Fosters Freeze

Okay, I now realize that we have Fosters Freeze in Fresno…

Indian Valley

A perfect route for the motorcycle—we saw less than 10 cars in an hour and a half (and the roads are nice and winding). I learned two lessons from this leg of the trip:

1. An insect that is trapped inside of a leather riding jacket and capable of biting, will.
2. On a motorcycle, with a gas tank capable of holding no more than five gallons (and I have large tanks), it’s very important to know the approximate distance to the next gas station, and to fill up before venturing onto back-country routes.

Baptism at the beach

One of my favorite parts of the annual trip.

Woodstocks Pizza

Next time you find yourself in San Luis Obispo, I recommend making your way to Woodstocks. Just don’t judge it by the decor (and read the carvings on the table before sitting down with your children).

Camp chili

I made a lot (see picture below), and it was damn good.

El Chorro Regional Regional Park

This is where we stayed; it was perfect for our group, and provided several recreational areas. My personal favorite was the dog park.

I could keep going. There were so many great experiences squeezed into a short trip—I’m ready for next year! For those interested in exploring some of these places on your own, I’ve mapped the route I took on the Harley.

I’ve often heard that a service can’t be provided fast, cheap and with high quality (all at the same time)—it can be fast and good, but it won’t be cheap. Or, it can be cheap and good, but it won’t be fast. You get the idea.

And with a new (used, that is) Harley, I’ll be lucky if I find any of these, at least in combination. Parts and service of decent quality are accessible, but they seem exorbitant in price.

But maybe I’m a little quick to judge:

Last weekend I discovered that one of my gas tanks was leaking due to a weakness around its upper mounting bolt. I took the tank off the bike and rinsed it out, but struggled to find anyone who would work on it (evidently, welding on a gas tank is dangerous). Alas, my boss pointed me in the direction of a local radiator repair shop, and they agreed to fix the leak.

I dropped the tank off at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I was warned that efforts would be made to preserve the paint, but that no guarantees could be made. I waited to hear just how much this would cost me: worst-case scenario, I was told, would be $75. Okay, so I can get the work cheap, but in what time frame? I picked it up at 4:30 p.m. that same day.

I can’t say yet whether or not the quality is what I hoped, as the tank still has to dry before I can re-assemble the motorcycle and fill it with gasoline, but the shop preserved the paint job, and even cleaned the rest of the tank in the process (the leaking gasoline had mixed with dirt to form a greasy sludge on the bottom). They also soldered over the effected area, smoothing it out and making it much more presentable that what I brought to them.

The shop is inconspicuously located downtown; I wonder how such reliability, timeliness and affordability affects their business?

I was warned that Harleys require a great deal of hands-on maintenance. Actually, several people “informed” me that H-D actually stands for “Hundred-Dollars”—even little add-ons or repairs cost that much.

The bike is in great shape, but John pointed out a small gas leak before he sold it to me. He gave me a new seal to repair what looked to be the cause, and shortly after getting the bike home, I drained the tanks and in no time was good to go.

Or so I thought.

I fired ‘er up and let it run for a few minutes; no leaks, so I took it around the block.

Drip.

Drip.

Argh…

Realizing that the leak was actually coming from the inside of the tank (then dripping down to the petcock, so it appeared to be leaking there), I set out to remove the tanks and get a closer look.

The short story is that I got the tanks off, found the leak (from a crack around the rear mounting bolt), found many people afraid to weld on it (gas and flame…um…don’t mix?), but lucked out when a local radiator repair shop agreed to fix it. Now, all is well. I’ll post more as the work continues.