The Y2K+1 Ride, A Pacific Coast Odyssey

Pictures, Trip Reports, Photo Links, etc.

The Riders…

And their steeds…

Attendees

Name	Home City, State, Country	Bike Ridden
Jack Agnew	San Jose, California	1998 PC800
Jim Anderson	San Jose, California	? Reflex
D. Norman Beck	Sunnyvale, California	1989 PC800
Tim Berg	Trabuco Canyon, California	? Aspencade
Carleton Black	Tacoma, Washington	1997 PC800
Bruce Bowman	Alameda, California	1989 PC800
Joyce Calvert	Rohnert Park, California	1996 PC800
Charles J. Cervantes	Los Angeles, California	1994 PC800
Lora Clarke	Los Angeles, California	Passenger
Philip Clarke	Los Angeles, California	1995 PC800
Roy Cope	Los Alamos, New Mexico	1997 PC800
Rick Corwine	Chanhassen, Minnesota	1995 PC800
Julia Coss	Elk Grove, California	Passenger
Roy Coss	Elk Grove, California	1990 PC800
Ben Crisologo	Los Angeles, California	1995 PC800
Revill Dunn	Austin, Texas	1996 PC800
Virgil Fussel	Bakersfield, California	? Gold Wing
Karen M. Gordon	North Pole, Alaska	funny looking four wheeled thing
Karen’s sister, Gale	Tacoma, Washington	same funny looking thing as Karen
Juan Goula	Fairbanks, Alaska	1990 PC800
Jonathon Grahl	Modjeska Canyon, California	1994 PC800
Sue Grahl	Modjeska Canyon, California	Passenger
George Hilsinger	Yakima, Washington	1997 PC800
Dick Hohstadt	Cove, Oregon	1995 PC800
Kenneth Howze	Inglewood, California	1998 PC800
Thomas E. Humphrey II	Clayton, California	1994 PC800
Mike Kanitsch	Phoenix, Arizona	1990 PC800
Sheila Kanitsch	Phoenix, Arizona	1990 PC800
Joel Kasof	Cupertino, California	1998 PC800
Jean-Guy Laferriere	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	1996 PC800
Jean-Guy’s S.O. (Liz?)	Spokane, Washington?	Passenger
Bob Larison	La Grande, Oregon	1990 PC800
Steve Leonard	San Clemente, California	1990 PC800
Patricia van der Linden	Arnhem, Netherlands	1989 PC800
Tim Macy	Newburg, Oregon	1994 PC800
Jabari Mahiri	Oakland, California	1990 PC800
Janice Martin	Milwaukie, Oregon	Passenger
Ralph McComb	Long Beach, California	1996 PC800
Naomi Metcalf	Seattle, Washington	1995 PC800
Dan Musser	Bakersfield, California	1989 PC800
Robert Nathanson	Portland, Oregon	1998 PC800
Peter Noeth	Rocklin, California	1996 PC800
Emile Nossin	Santpoort-Noord, Netherlands	1989 PC800
Jeff Parker	Escondido, California	? VFR
Bruce Pickett	Federal Way, Washington	1990 PC800
Gil Pitt	Cupertino, California	1983 Silverwing Interstate
Sandy Pitt	Cupertino, California	Passenger
William Pitt	Cupertino, California	?
Kevin Quosig	San Leandro, California	1996 PC800
Kevin Quosig’s S.O. (Diane)	San Leandro, California	Passenger
Ann Reid	Scottsdale, Arizona	1989 PC800
Dennis Rogers	Sacramento, California	1989 PC800
Daryl Rozendal	Oregon City, Oregon	1996 PC800
Francois Saint Laurent	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada	1995 PC800
Leland C. Sheppard	Placerville, California	1994 PC800
E. Brian Soloway	Warrenton, Virginia	1990 PC800
Jesus Soriano	Ramona, California	1995 PC800
Brett Takemoto	Salida, California	1990 PC800
Bob Walton	Milwaukie, Oregon	1994 PC800
Carla Williams	Belmont, California	1994 PC800
Dean Williams	Springfield, Oregon	funny looking four wheeled thing
Jerry Williams	Thousand Oaks, California	1996 PC800
Kel Williams	Cottage Grove, Oregon	same funny looking vehicle as Dean
Charlie Zartman	La Grande, Oregon	1997 PC800
64 people		53 bikes, 47 PC800s, 2 funny looking 4-wheeled things

Revill Dunn’s Trip Report

Stranger than Fiction.

“There is no end.  There is no beginning.  There is only the infinite passion of life.”  Fredrico Fellini, as quoted by Captain Tupperware, AKA Chris Carastanjen in his last email to the PC800 list.

 As everyone knows, on  Tues., Sept. 11th. the world changed.  I happened to be on vacation at the time, about half the way through a nice long motorcycle trip.   I’d been having a wonderful time.  Been to four national parks so far,  visited old friends (and getting older, let me tell you!)  in two states and was camped that evening in a lovely state park within earshot of the Pacific under a fern bigger than my motorcycle.  I was looking forward to another day of riding down the California Pacific Coast Highway with a group of other enthusiasts of the unusual; a quiet motorcycle, the Honda Pacific Coast.  Together, we are the Silent Horde.  The ride was to be known as the Pacific Coast Odessey.

I’m on an email list for owners of this particular wheeled vehicle.  I’ve met some of the listers, and somehow…  It’s the right demographic for me.  We like each other.  I’m fairly loquatious over the email, so I’m fairly well known on the list.  We discuss appealing farkels (almost anything that can be attached to or used with a motorcyle, but the word also has connotations of expensive) commensurate with each other after accidents, and frequently discuss the obvious superiority of the Honda PC over all the various, slyly disparaged alternatives.

I’d met with this particular subset of the list  Sunday night in Eureka for supper.   It was at a place way out on a barrier island, offering a Loggers Repast.    I missed the turn, went the wrong way.  All the way to the Power Plant.  Backtracked, missed it again.  Finally found a bunch of the  right sort of motorcycles parked out front of a building.  I was very late.  The waitstaff  directed me to the wrong group first.  A dozen Harley Riders from Austin.   (He asked if I was from Austin?  When I said yes, that’s where I got seated.)  We got that worked out and I was warmly welcomed by the correct group in the other room.  The noisy one.  Quiet motorcycles, noisy riders?   The Harley guys where just sitting there talking quietly.

Four or five people told me that “they always loved putting faces to people they’d met on the internet.  I’d just never thought that…”  made me wonder whether it was the way I looked, or the way I typed?  Which one didn’t fit?  The group made me welcome, then went on with the party.  Several speeches, much raucous laughter and clapping later, (with hoots and whistles), the party broke up.  I returned to my campsite 20 miles north of town for the night, and settled down to a restful evening full of the sound of the surf.

Next morning we gathered in the parking lot of a mall in Eureka.  I was late because I was starting from too far out of town and missed the Big Photo Opportunity.   They got  32  Honda PC800s in one shot.  Just as I pulled in, other  bikes started heading out so the Record Number of Honda PC800’s in One Photograph still stands at 32, unchanged from last year.

I followed the crowd to the Lost Coast Highway, a road made for motorcycles if ever there was one.    But to go middling slow, I had to miss the scenery.  And the scenery was worth watching.  I compromised by going very slow.  The road cooperated with that approach, offering hairpins with  the inside uphill lane  almost vertical, decreasing radius downhill  off camber curves, gravel in strategic places; all those little reminders to not get carried away with the poetry of motion.

I’d been following F for a couple of miles,  but that was work and I was missing scenery. B’s pace was much more to my liking.  He’s a new rider, openly apprehensive about road rash and Tupperware bills.  I followed him for a couple of miles, then passed and lead him.   He may not know it, but it’s a lot easier to follow.  This is not really the road for him, and I sort of wanted to keep an eye on him.   We went past two big Motor Homes, in deep trouble.  I could smell the brakes for a long way before we caught up with them.  They were on a steep downhill with a 5 mph hairpin at the bottom (the inside lane, ours, was almost vertical at the inside edge) and stopped and waved us past.   I wasn’t sure I WANTED to be in front of them at that point.   But we went around, and kept going until they weren’t close behind anymore.  I hope they made it OK.

B is staying a half curve behind me, and I’m helping him by picking a nice smooth line at a nice even speed through the turns.  It’s really easier to follow.someone.  When they see the turn suddenly sharpen they hit their brakes, and you have that much more time to get ready.  Unless you’re following L of course.  He doesn’t use brakes.

But the road was so seductive.  We hit a nice, smooth newly repaired section with a series of long downhill esses each ending in a wide 25 mph (marked) hairpin two hundred feet over the Pacific, more esses,  then a 15 mph (real!) vertical hairpin at the land end.  Oooooh!  I sort of lost B.  Waited for him at the bottom. Here he comes.  Rubber still underneath, no new scars.  Face  looks grim.  I pull out in front of him.

We go on, get to the top of a pass and I stop for a photo.  F is already there, coming back from the bush.  As I come out of the bush B pulls in.  He’s doing OK, a bit white maybe. Photos of the bikes against the sky, sea  and clouds, two riders at a time.   I congratulated B for getting through the last ten miles.   That was one of the most challenging roads I’ve ever seen in my 30 plus (shush!) years of riding, and he did pretty well.  Most importantly, he got through right side up.

Hearing that what he’d just been through was an extreme case really pleased B.  Little did he know what the next 20 miles had in store for him!  True joy, that’s what.  He’d caught “it”.  Made the mistake of enjoying himself in curves and twisties  with a motorcycle.  I’ve never seen a more maniacal, bug toothed grin in my life.

We made all made it through, except for the couple with the trailer.  Apparently they got a bit hot in a corner and broke some tupperware. (PC’s are completely covered in plastic, referred  to as tupperware by the cognoti.  When you have to pull the plastic off to get at the insides (a rare thing on a PC) it’s a tupperware party.  I have a sticker on my bike “Body by Tupperware”.  I’ve been asked several times if Tupperware really makes motorcycles.)

Neither one broke anything personal though.   Modern riding gear is amazing.   Must get some myself one of these days.  I’m still depending on leather.

When the road left the coast, it went first through the Humbolt Redwoods, then took us to Hwy 101 and the Avenue of the Giants.  Extremely slow speed limits, and it’s a good thing too.  Too much to look at to ride a motorcycle.  Completely and entirely unphotographable, of course.  PC’s look like ants next to redwoods. 
Not surprising, most things do.  But when you get back on and start out, and the shadows and light, the trees and the sun go past, 25 is plenty fast enough.  This is not something to rush through.

Most of the group stayed in a motel at Ft. Bragg that night, but I elected to camp at McKericher State Park a few miles north.    The park with the head high ferns.  A lovely park, a restful night.   A nice ranger who flagged me down and told me the  news as I was driving out the next morning.

That was then.

Now in this new world that looks so similar, but is so very different  I did what had to be done.  I continued my vacation.

As I write I’m sitting in a motel room in Parker AZ, the Saturday after the Pacific Coast Odyssey.  I dropped out in Malibu, at Topanga Canyon Blvd.    This is the first time the whole trip I’ve had a minute to put pen to paper.  Some journal.  I’ve taken a few photographs, tried to engrave a few incidents in short term memory, but not actually written a word.  Now to make up, get some things down.

This is a quite nice motel.   Owner operated, and  decorated with the shiniest that Home Depot has to offer.  There’s a 10″ strip of decorative wallpaper all the away around the top of the room, closet and bathroom.   The shower has two flavors of hot water.  Local ground temperature,  and heated.   Not all that much difference.

-scuse me.  sirens  and flashing red lights outside.-

Got em!  The local volunteer fire department is having a fund raiser picnic, and they’re giving kids rides in the antique fire engine.  Except that the Hindu desk clerk/motel owner says that they (which includes himself; he’s a member)  actually use it to put out fires.   I hope the photos come out.  A white fire engine from the ’50s, filled with waving kids.  Almost like nothing had changed.  Norman Rockwell America with Anglo, Hispanic, Asian and Other kids all over it.

Night before I’d stayed with S.  He’s a magnificent host. Just happened to have a spare 2 bedroom apartment just for me, of which I only managed to use the bed, bath and laundry rooms.  Best I could do in one night.    He has a business selling smart ass bumper stickers to dumb asses.  (Oops.  Did a personal opinion pop out there?) Other things too, of course.  Anything that’ll fit on a truck-stop display  rack.  Little smiley faces for your car antennae with various headgear.  Key rings.  Bottle openers.   Plastic stick on flags. etc.  etc. etc.   The plastic “thought balloons” on suction cups that you can stick to your car window with witty sayings?  S’s doing.

S had ordered some multi thousand little plastic American Flags to stick inside your car or truck window just before the Gulf War ended.   At that point, demand for plastic stick on flags went from  strong to zero in milliseconds.  S didn’t quite know what to do with them, but hadn’t surplussed them yet.  Suddenly, Wednesday  flags were in demand.  He couldn’t spend much time with me visiting, too busy shipping flags.   It must have bothered him to stumble into such a windfall in such a horrible way.  He kept talking about making a contribution to a charitable fund for those harmed by the attack.  As soon as they get set up.  We’re all still in shock, this is only Friday.

So it was Friday, and I was in Long Beach, CA.  S took the evening off from supplying the nations’ Need for Flags, and we went out to supper.  The Entertainment District was sort of filled with a spontaneous demonstration.  Groups of people, from twos to tens, were walking around with flags and candles.  There were a few chants.  As S has reported on the  EW list, I was a bit aghast at the “Night before the big game” atmosphere. I don’t know why.  I guess I have  an aversion to flag waving from past experience.  Gentle, caring flag waving is a new experience to me.

But this was a gentle, caring demonstration.   Well, I am in La La land, after all.  (In Marin County I passed  a roadkill deer memorialized with flowers.   Got a photo.  Marin County is the heart  and soul of La La Land, just as area 51 is the heart and soul of Nevada.  Got photos of that too.  No, Las Vegas is a different body part.  No photos of Las Vegas.  Didn’t go that way.)

Back here in semi normal Long Beach there were chants, but they were of the “Hey, Hey, Hey, U! S! A!” sort.  Nothing about ragheads, kill, nuke, none of that.  One smartass changed it to  “U! S! S! R!” and bystanders just smiled patiently.  Probably  got the reference to the Beatles tune.

S and I had a beer at one place, then a meal at another.  The demonstration, if that was what it was, kept on apace.  People milling about with candles and flags sporadically cheering for the USA, honking horns and such, and a lot of other people, (and often the same people coming in and out) attending to the business of eating and drinking.  S made several attempts to cheer, but my fuddy duddy presence suppressed him.  Sorry S. Please, go ahead. Don’t mind me.

Friday morning a little before noon  I’d left the Pacific Coast Odyssey  at Topanga Canyon Blvd. to see it I could find a bit of my past.  The year 12, to be specific.  Back in the ’60s, my family moved here from Texas for a few years.   We’d lived in a house in the San Bernadino Valley for a couple of years, then moved to Canoga Park for almost two years before returning to Houston.   My brother had found and photographed the house in San Berdoo ten years ago.   I wanted to find the Canoga Park house.  Mom couldn’t remember the address, adding to the challenge.

Topanga Canyon road hasn’t changed at Hwy 1.  There’s the station Dad coasted into once when the brakes went out and we went most of the canyon using the emergency hand brake.  There’s the fence we would have gone through, and the cliff we would have gone over if the emergency brakes on the ’57 Pontiac Superchief Stationwagon had given out.

There’s the same mix I remember of opulent and scruffy, the Canyon Palace and the Original Settler.

A few miles up the canyon things separate.  I take Old Topanga Canyon Road, and the mix goes heavily in favor of the originals.  With intrusions, of course.  The road is lined with “Please Slow Down!” signs, intended for Porsches.  For the most part, the old road, being already built, has avoided the Mansion Treatment.  When I was 12, I’d hitch a ride up here and ride all the way back to Canoga Park on my bicycle.   One ride back was good for one set of caliper brake pads on the switchbacks.  I passed cars several times near the bottom, when the pads were getting thin and smoky.

You know what?  This is one hell of a  road.  10 mph switchbacks.  6 degree hills.   I’d be careful doing this road today, with a modern bicycle with good brakes.

Suddenly I’m out of the hills, it’s 30 degrees hotter, and I’m in Canoga Park.  Things have changed here.  Ethnic mix more than anything else, but lots of things have changed.  Canoga Park is now about 50% Hispanic, mostly non-English speaking, with lots and lots of “other”.   By asking four bystanders, I locate Christopher Columbus Jr. High School.  Interestingly enough, the four bystanders had exactly four different native languages.  All were as helpful as they possibly could be, or more if that’s possible.

Without going into details, the plan was to go to Columbus Jr. High, then go home from school.  It took a couple of false tries.  Third time’s a charm, and east led me to a pretty familiar cull de sac, with a branching street.    Three streets and left to my buddy’s house (what was his name?) with the comic book collection.  There’s a stucco garage where it should be, a gate in the garden wall where it should be.  I remember going out that gate the morning we found out that someone had stolen all the wheels off Dad’s Panhard (A 2 cylinder, air cooled, aluminum bodied French made car that Dad loved, but that required a rebuild every 10,000 miles).  There’s a couple of 40′ palm trees I don’t remember.  The corner of Independence and Hull St., Canoga Park, CA.

There’s a chimney where I remember that big rock fireplace.  If the room with the fireplace is on a lower level than the kitchen, and if the fireplace has big river rocks on it, I’ve found the place.  I knock on the door.  Sorta can see the back room through the window.   The light where the patio door is in the back room is jagged, like a fireplace with big river rocks.

A Hispanic man answers.  Suspicious.  Obviously doesn’t believe my story. I don’t know what he thought I was after, but he  denies  that theres a fireplace in the back room.

Considering the chimney poking up above the roof in the back corner, it’s obvious that this conversation is going nowhere. I thank him for his time and apologize for bothering him,  and leave.    Take a photo of the place.

You know, that’s the first bit of mistrust I’ve encountered in…. days.  Since I started the trip.    Even before the world changed.

It all keeps coming back to Tuesday and the destruction of the Word Trade Center.   That nice Park Ranger flagged me down, shared the new world with me.  I’ll always resent it. If only I could have gone another ten minutes without knowing.  Nothing would have been different, but I’d have had another ten minutes in the old world, the safe one.  Life goes on.

At the Designated Gathering  Place in Fort Bragg, rumors are going around.  You all remember.   Five planes.  Seven.  Four.  We gather, discuss, decide to ride anyway. What else?  Were we able to do anything about anything?     We continued.    A long chase down some very nice foggy/sunny/foggy roads to Pt. Reyes.

Weather is changing by 30 degrees as we go from sunny to foggy.  I’m either freezing with all the zippers open and no sweater, or roasting all closed up with the sweater on. Seems like each time I give up and zip/cover up, the road turns inland and gets sunny and warm.  Every time I give up and unzip/uncover, the road turns to the ocean and it’s foggy, wet and cold.   Finally, we stop for lunch in the town of Pt. Reyes, weather in sunny/inland mode.

 After lunch we head out to the lighthouse.  About a mile out, we go past the sunny/foggy interface.  Four miles out, I stop and put my sweater back on and zip up all the hot weather zippies.    Several nice interesting photo ops noted, for the ride back. I try to never take a shot if I’m going to be back that way later.   Saves film.   Might be a better shot a few feet farther on.     On the way back,  you know what’s coming around the next curve.

Several very nice photos of twisted trees and fog on the way.  Almost ran off the road trying to take a photo of a line of PC’s ahead of me in the fog.  Dumb thing to do, and the photo wasn’t impressive either.

The Lighthouse is closed to the public.  Wrong day.  There’s a fog bank sitting on the point.  We can see only a little bit of ocean, just on the downwind side right next to the rock.  In the little bit we can see, there’s a whale, doing it’s whale thing.  It’s about >that< big (hold thumb and forefinger apart a bit) from here.  Imagine, needing binoculars to see a whale, from almost directly above.

The whale continues to whale, disappearing for five minutes, then blowing and fluking for five minutes.  We start to head back.  I stop for that photo of  that roadkill flower arrangement.

All the way, there’d been a rumor that the Golden Gate Bridge was closed to traffic.  L had called the Bridge Authority from Port Reyes, and it was not a true rumor.  I caught up with the group at the Marin Bridge overlook.  Took a picture of PC’s with the Golden Gate in the background, then went on across the Gate.  Motorcycles qualify as “carpools”.  No toll to cross.

I had a date to visit with M in SF  When I called, things were a bit complicated for a visit.  Since I was only minutes away, I stopped but it wasn’t a great time for them to have a house guest.  Current events.  M’s cousin, the mother of two students in NYC, was over for support.  Her boys were living in an apartment four blocks from the Word Trade Center.  They saw the whole thing, then were forcibly evacuated by the police. Hosed down by fire hoses to protect them from possible contamination from the fallout.   Herded, wet and cold, away from the danger zone like cattle.     They were given a ride across the river by a boat of some sort, and wandered through New Jersey without finding a place to rest.

All this time they were in communication with their mother  in San Francisco via cell phone.  She called them, or they called her, every little while.   M was making a strong effort to host me while helping her cousin deal with the emergency.  We had supper, and I showed M’s family my family photos.  Parted, promising to try again in better circumstances.

This must be the first major urban evacuation with the victims in continuous contact with friends and loved ones, during the evacuation.  This modern world.

All this time, I’d been watching myself, other PC’ers and all the people we met as we all adjusted to the news from New York.  I’m sure you were too.  There wasn’t much else to talk about, but I was most pleased by what I hadn’t heard.  No slurs, very little revenge talk.  Mostly people talking about what they could possibly do to help, or silence.  Rumors, of course.   Some true.  The President has declared war.   Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson blamed the whole thing on divine revenge for all those evil things in America, like the ACLU.

I look around, and I see the evil everywhere.  All these people, all this diversity, and all this tolerance.   Hindu motel owners, Pakistanis, Cambodians, Laotians,   Hispanics, Anglos.  A stern god like Jerry’s or Osama’s can’t tolerate such fraternity.  Rubbing shoulders, rubbing elbows, consoling each other about the events.  Austin is fairly polyglot and I work in high tech with the world’s smartest people, all gathered together in Central Texas.  Mostly to me, all this immigration has meant that now I can get great Thai and Indonesian food.   But California is where this disease of multiculturalism started, and is still it’s greatest stronghold.  Sorry Jerry and Pat, that you don’t like all this tolerance and trust building.  I do.

Except the urban areas.  San Francisco is downright scary.  The clerk at the Shamrock Station/Mini Mart won’t let me in the building to use the potty.  The whole building is locked after dark and gas is sold from behind inch thick glass.
(It wasn’t quite 8 PM).

Next day we started in Pacifica, had a brunch at the famous Alice’s Restaurant courtesy of Milpitas Honda.   One of our group is promoting a “Queer Ride through Death Valley” later in the month.  By his definition queer includes a lot.  L feels he qualifies, having once filled his PC with diesel.    Several riders are talking hopefully about the ride with him.  They see it as what it is, a chance to ride motorcycles and aren’t all that concerned with labels.     Pure evil.   Personally, I like motorcycles and all that, but Death Valley?  Even in late September that doesn’t sound like fun.   Too much like South Texas.

The group dribbled out of Alice’s three and four at a time for the coast.  Next stop was a group photo at Pescadero St. Beach.  This was where I heard about Captain Tupperware, AKA Chris Carastanjen.  I’ve never met Chris, but enjoyed his postings.

I’ve not been on line since I left home.  I was behind the news all during the trip.  I didn’t catch up with all the postings (over 1300) until I returned home.  There it all was waiting for me.   The first fears.  Then confirmations.  L and E contacted Chris’s wife, and she’d already been told.  The shock, the pain of five hundred people who knew Chris.

People started posting rememberences and suggestions for a memorial.  Turns out that Chris was a Morris Dancer, and warmly remembered for many things beyond motorcycles and the PC800 email list.  Several eloquent eulogies, both original to the list and quotes from other media.  A website was set up in his memory,  https://piloot.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Private-motorcycle-trips/California-2001/

Chris had organized a “Fall Colors Tour” in New England for next month.   One lister suggested that an appropriate memorial might be for the tour to go on, renamed the Chris Carastanjen Memorial Fall Colors Tour.   It’s happening, and it’s getting big.  Gee, I wish I had some vacation left.

And there was one email from the Captain himself, written to the list just before leaving for the airport to come join us.   In his signature he quotes Fellini.  “There is no end.  There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.”.