Thursday

Woke up this morning at six and it was not raining, but when I looked at the radar on my phone I saw it was not far away.  Got a quick breakfast and put on the rain gear.  This took about half an hour.  I have rain jacket and pants, of course, but also boot covers and glove covers and then rain covers for my tank bag and tail bag.  All of it worked through a couple of hours of steady rain.   Between Susanville and Oroville there are some really good roads.   Most notable of these are highway 89 and highway 70.  I think Big Mike and I rode these a couple of years ago on our ride to the Reno area.  Hwy 70, in particular, has some stunning scenery and lots of curves.  Unfortunately, it was raining the first rain in a long  time and I could actually see the oil/water mix on the pavement alot of the time.  I was riding a bit tense.  There were also rocks falling off the cliffs so there were some bowling-ball size rocks in the road.

Eventually I got past the front.  I checked the radar app on my phone to be sure.  This is a great app for a motorcyclist.  Here is a picture of it that I took after I had been past the rain band for awhile.

Later on when I was near Clear Lake, CA I ran into a little bit of rain and used the app to reassure myself it was just a minor shower, so I didn't stop to put on any rain gear.

We hear a lot about the drought in California, but I obviously was not experiencing any of it.  However, I did pass over a reservoir just outside of Oroville that shows an example of how bad it is:

I got to Jenny's house around 4:30 and found cold PBRs waiting for me in the fridg.  I rode just over 1000 miles in the three days to get here and managed to miss most of the rain, which I understand from talking to Carolyn is still falling at times at home.  My original route down the coast would have been about 830 miles.