Day 17: It's My way or the Byway

Big Bear Lake, San Bernardino Forest, California

Distance for the day: 289.1 km

Cumulative distance: 3788.5 km

Top speed: 120 kph

Moving average: 61 kph

Temperature: 26.4 - 36.2 (we actually saw it over 37 but that was inside the town of Palmdale, so I don't count that because the bike is moving slowly between traffic lights.

Elevation: 2114 metres

First off, my most humble apologies for failing to properly turn on the tracking device. I thought I had done it and discovered when we got to a campground that it had not been on all day. If you are a total map nerd (like me) and want to know where we rode, here is our route for today: from McGill Campground back down Mount Pinos Rd, then followed Cuddy Valley Rd,  Frazier Ltn Park Rd, then right onto Ralph's Ranch Rd, which crosses under the I5 snf yutnd into Gormon Post Rd, we connect with CA 138 for a few kilometres, then deviate right onto Old Ridge Route N2 which was a very twisty up and down that waws so old, grass was growing in the cracks in the pavement. The N2 then tuns into Elizabeth Lake Rd and just as we were at the outskirts of Palmdale, had an outstanding lunch at Jack's Place. We zigzagged through Palmdale and got back on CA 138, past Silverwood Lake, where 138 turns into "Rim of the Lake Scenic Byway" and turns south past Crestline, which, if you have followed this far, you can see is a total squiggle zone, through Rimforest, Running Springs and then the south side of Big Bear Lake, where we are unsuccessful in reaching Pineknot Campground due to the steep gravel road approach so swing around to the north side of the lake and Serrano Campground. That took me about 15 minutes to figure out.

I was awake early (5:00 am) and outside to check the stars and they were brilliant. And, to my amazement, it was fairly mild, which surprised me given how cold it was when I went to bed. The result of which I finally did go back to sleep and slept in till 8:00 a.m. I'M RETIRED AND I DON'T CARE. 

But after re-organizing my bags of clothing so that I could replace a torn ziploc styled bag for my rain suit, it was 10:30 by the time we hit the road. Not overly happy with the campground, there was no water. Plus, when we asked the camp host about bear safety and food storage, he said "just throw it in your car" then told several bear encounter stories that had occurred in the campground. We explained that we didn't have a car and he seemed totally lost and didn't know what to say so we asked if we could store our food and other related in his c-can and he thought that would be acceptable. 

It didn't take long to warm up. In fact, it was warm when we started and in short order we were talking about peeling off layers. We toughed it out till lunch time but afterwards, I lost all I could, which included both shirts that I was wearing. I kept my wits and my pants about me but I was happy I had my "track" pants on and not my jeans.  Tomorrow, I'll start out in shorts, depending what time we get going.

Where we camped.

Our camping guest.

As we rode over the Rim highway and through Rimforest, we had quite a view over the neighbouring valley where we had a bird's eye view of San Bernardino, which is a outside suburb of Los Angeles. Other than stopping at the airport to change planes, this is the closest to LA I have come.

This is part of the aquaduct system
that feeds LA with water.

This was the road that had
grass growing in the cracks.

This is one of the reasons we don't like to ride Interstate highways.

When we arrived at Big Bear Lake, we looked for a particular campground that was poorly marked and hard to access on a big street-based motorcycle so we ditched that plan and rode around to the other side of the lake were there are located a couple of other state campgrounds. The public campgrounds are generally a little cheaper and aren't so crowded. When we arrived at our campground of  (second) choice, we discovered that they had ONE site left, out of a total of 132. Plus, it was a DOUBLE campsite, so cost $79. I suggested she just sell the other side but that didn't go over so well. It is still cheaper than a fleabag motel.

This is an abandoned hotel in Fawnskin. The area is very wealthy but the wealth is primarily on the other side of Big Bear Lake. I guess this is "Lower Bear Lake"

This is a solar observatory at Big Bear. It is not primarily a tourist offering but a research facility. However, for lucky people, therer are occasional openings for tours for non-reearch people.