Belmont Shore

South of big Sur the weather continued to improve. Route 1 was also gorgeous. I headed south toward the LA area. My plan at the beginning of the day was to find a camping spot in the mountains nearby. As I continued south I remembered that Finley lives in long Beach. The next time I stopped I shot Finley a text seeing if he was around and if I could stay on his couch. Before I could ask if I could stay over, he offered my an inflatable bed in the guest room! I immediately changed my destination for the end of the day.

I've always heard that I would find some delicious tacos out in this part of the country. I did a quick search for the Santa Barbara area and picked a spot. I'm not sure if Santa Barbara generally has good tacos, but the place I went to sure did. I had one fish, one al pastor, and one barbacoa. All delicious. Each taco was full of flavor, especially the al pastor which has pineapple in it! Then there was a salsa bar with about 8 or 10 different salsas. I think I might need to go back to try them all. I only tried the habanero and the avocado salsas.

After lunch, I continued down the coast. Some areas were home to beach towns and some were just mountains and ocean. This is a gorgeous part of the country which seems like a dessert one minute and beach oasis the next. Soon I started to see off shore oil derricks near Catalina island which is off the coast of LA. I was getting close. As I navigated my way into Long Beach, I new there would be traffic. I was arriving at the height of rush hour. As I passed through Malibu traffic started to back up but it was still moving. By the time I got to Santa Monica traffic was stop and go. It was also about 80 degrees outside and my bike and I were roasting in the sun. I stayed on route 1 till I got passed LAX. The traffic was almost dead stopped, however California allows motorcycles to lane split. I was too hot and my cooling fan was cranked up, so I joined in with the rest of the free motorcycles. Just 10 miles per hour, and I was a lot cooler, but I was still about 25 miles from Finley's place.

I got on to the 405, and it was 5 lanes of stop and go traffic. I noticed that there were motorcycles lane splitting between the carpool lane and the rest of the traffic. I was out of my element so I followed suit. My eyes were darting left and right as I comparatively flew by nearly stopped cars. As I sliced through traffic I noticed a few motorcycles behind me. I ducked into a lane to let them pass. Getting back between the lanes I found that the other motorcycles were traveling at about 40mph. This speed felt way too fast especially for my fat ass panniers, so I maintained a more comfortable 30mph. Soon I became more comfortable with my width and was able to concentrate on other drivers and stop worrying about my panniers getting ripped off by slower moving vehicles.

After 45 or so minutes of intense riding I arrived in Long Beach. Finley arrived about a minute after I started to park the bike. We went up to his apartment and I was able to take a very refreshing shower just before Finley made some rocking chicken tacos. After dinner we drove to Huntington Beach for a beer. It was a great way to wind down after a stressful ride, and it was fun hanging out and catching up with Finley. Thank you for the great hospitality!

The next day I reluctantly said goodbye to the ocean, but was headed towards my cousin Sam's place a few hours east which made me forget about leaving the ocean.

Picture: The beautiful California coast on route 1 just south of big Sur. I didn't take as many pictures as the landscape begged, but I was enjoying the ride too much to stop and take pictures every few feet. The road is also fairly twisty.Read more