Well, I participated in the day, but it was a solo venture riding from my house to the house of a friend in Orinda, which is near San Francisco. I traveled over the Sacramento Delta, but I’ll further elaborate on that later. We had big plans to get out on the obscure hills of the area, until her youngest adorable daughter poked herself in the eye with some local flora. An icepack and phone call later decided our fate, and we instead took the kids to dinner at the Nation’s for burgers. I’ll tell you, that cheeseburger more than made up for the loss of a few twisties!!
My friend Christina had been, up until this point primarily a forum buddy. We’d chat online, commiserate political affinities and dissatisfaction and in general enjoy one another’s talents. Today, we discovered that visiting in person was every bit as fun!
Christina is an amazing photographer, and her work can be viewed at her business website. She also wrote a wonderful book highlighting female Bay Area motorcyclists entitled Chicks on Bikes, which is on of my favorite books to share with my friends, riders and non-rider both! Her work is beautiful, intense, provocative and spontaneous much like her personality. We spend a wonderful evening and day together along with her talented and fun daughters.
Now about the Sacramento Delta. I don’t believe I have ever ridden it without getting lost at one point or another. Silly me had not enlisted my husband’s help to mount the GPS, so i was map free and proved that there is no way I should ever leave home without a map or GPS. Looking for the Delta Hwy 160 entrance, I somehow ended up in Pocket cruising around some high end neighborhood, looking very lost. I did find myself getting plenty of U-turn practice. 😉
When I finally found the right road it was already near 4pm. It’s a 2 hour ride to Orinda so, it looked like my arrival would be a bit later than intended, but hey, that’s schedule free riding for ya!
My arrival at Christina’s lovely home and the greeting from her youngest daughter.
Some artsy photos of the area shot with my iPhone…
The irises were just gorgeous!!
The entire garden around the house was lovely.
I dawdled the following day, took a nice hike with Christina’s older daughter over one steep mother of a road. Man, I thought she was gonna kill me, but she not only loaned me a good pair of walking shoes, but cut me some slack as I frequently stopped to “gain my breath”! This just proved that motorcycling isn’t the only think that needs more practice! The day was wonderful and I finally dragged myself away around 5pm and headed home.
Christina and I googled the route home and I was certain I had it together, but of course, as fate seems to have it for me, I got lost in the delta. I thought you could ride down either side of the river, but apparently I ended up deciding this too early and discovered some lovely cow fields and subsidiarity sloughs. When I reached a one lane road, I knew I had done it yet again. I’m clueless, what can I say.
I finally got home nearly 8pm…and was quite glad. So much for International Female Ride Day when the female is me!