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dirt dame

Laguna Dualsport 10/18/08

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Got up in plenty early to get ready and hit the road at the appointed time. Had everything all good to go and managed to forget my camera. (cameras need to be like post-it notes so I can just stick mine up some place like on the bike or stuck to my helmet ;) ) Drat and double drat. ;) Half the fun of a ride IS the ride, but the other half of the fun is posting and sharing photos of the ride.

I got over to Roostinu's place right on time and we putted up to Ramona, arriving at the Circle K for a fuel-up just before 9:30. Across the street at Packards, the Harley riders were all swilling down the coffee, but no dualsporters were present. :( We sat under the big palm tree in the parking lot, where birds took turns trying to poop on us, (one got my TE) till 9:45 rolled around. No riders appeared, so we continued to Julian. There was an accident on the twisty part of the highway between Ramona and Santa Ysabel. This slowed us down and finally stopped us, while the fire department and the CHP cleared things up. Looked like a head on between a newer compact sports car and a classic mid sixties red Mustang. I don't know if there were injuries, but neither of the cars came out good. :lol:

Julian wasn't too bad for traffic and tourists this morning and we cleared that area pretty quickly, heading out Sunrise to Deerpark. When we got down the other side of the trail, we poked around on some side trails. A lot of trails that I used to ride had been closed since the fire swept through there a few years ago. I couldn't find some of the old mine trails, and others that I did find were closed to vehicle traffic and barricaded.

So we kept on rolling east on Pine Creek, then arrived in Pine Valley for a rest, fuel and some cheap eats.

While I was at the mini mart check-out with my ice cream cone, I spied a lady with a giant fresh made sandwich that looked pretty darn good. I told Jeff that if he was hungry he ought to order one of those, so he ordered a half a one. Just a half, about six inches long and only $3.50! ;) The gasoline may still be expensive out there, but the fresh made sandwiches are a real bargain.

After Pine Valley, we took the old highway east to Kitchen Creek. Yeah, I know....I've done this ride a couple of times this Fall already, but Jeff hadn't been out this way yet, so it was all new to him. We had a good time exploring some of the side trails out on the connector trail and the side trails off of Thing Valley road as well. The purple bushes from Mars were mostly all gone this time around and the landscape was wearing that dry, pre-winter pall that comes with cold nights and no rain. Still the weather was great and the fragrance of sage floated on the breeze all day.

On our way north again on Sunrise, we stopped at the gated area on the east side of the road where we did a loop back in July. I led the way, following the route we had taken before....until we got way out back and took a split that I was confident was the correct way to go, and it was. But everything after that was wrong. :o Soon, I realized that we weren't where we were supposed to be, but back on one of the trails that we had come in on. I tried another trail, but it soon turned into a short steep version of Bikesluts award winning downhill. We stopped and walked part of it. The trail looked like it would connect to where we wanted to be off in the distance, but between here and there was getting very treacherous. We walked and slid a little bit.... It was late and I was getting tired. A four wheel drive vehicle had appeared to have made it either up or down (probably down), but the path was extremely steep, eroded and very silty. I fell down just trying to walk back up to my bike. ;) So we decided it wasn't for us and worked our way back up the part of the hill that we had just ridden down. From there we rode back to the highway. There would be another day soon, to re-visit this area again.

Once on the road, we headed for home. By late afternoon, Julian had turned into a giant traffic jam on the main drag, so we skirted it on the back streets.

It was a good ride. We had fun, no crashes and no flat tires! :D Too bad no one came and joined us. As a side note, KLRoger was trying to join us but had some bad luck with his front tire being flat. That, and he got a late start. So KL, sorry you missed us and I hope you will get an earlier response going to the post. I know I posted the ride kinda late last night, too. ;) There's always next time, and next time is always as soon as possible for me. ;)

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mimi,

you make up for the lack of pictures with great prose...

jeff; whats your excuse for no pictures?!?!?!

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I love photos. I have a cheap little digital camera that is hard to use the monitor for composing the shot. but I enjoy the challenge of making the camera work for me. Then I enjoy editing and revamping the photos. I want the pictures to say something. I'll edit and fuss with a photo and if it doesn't say anything after I have cropped it, enhanced it, rebalanced the color (and maybe, taken the wrinkles out ;) ) I just throw it away and go on to the next one. I still love my old 35 mm Minolta "tank" and if it didn't weigh a ton and wasn't so fragile, I'd still be getting the great shots I used to take back in the olden days. :)

Jeff took some shots, so maybe he will post something.

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Ya pictures huh, I am a little slow getting on here but I will get some pictures up. I experienced a lot of new trails today nice, rocky, scenic, and empty I don't remember passing anything but a couple trucks, 2 mountain bikes, and some hikers and the last area we rode was very interesting to me, it is my second time back there and there is a lot more to explore, it can be treacherous. DD you were totaly lost, I knew we were on new stuff and it was a lot of fun, but like Mimi said one section was very close to being unrideable for the steep off camber deep rutted quick sand, little or no traction, but as soon as the tire started spinning it dug down fast, I think there was another route out of there but I sure didn't want to have to return up the lower portion of that hill. Weather was perfect, DD is a great ride guide and photographer and blogger. I will work on the pictures but no movies till tomorrow. ;)

Pine Valley

CIMG3322.jpg

Kool

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Captain Lepetomane

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regroup

CIMG3326.jpg

that way!

CIMG3328.jpg

CIMG3335.jpg

four wheel drive

CIMG3336.jpg

looking down

CIMG3337-1.jpg

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four wheel drive (not to mention "four on the floor"!)

CIMG3336.jpg

looking down (and remember, the TE is somewhere down the trail from the EXC)

CIMG3337-1.jpg

Those pictures almost show how steep that hill really was! :);)

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Captain Lepetomane

CIMG3325-1.jpg

I had to do a quick search on that..... Ha Ha Ha! For all those who are unsure what LePetomane means....... Here you go ;)

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=202

Looked like a nice day for a ride. I imagine the weather was perfect in the mountains. I was down at Plaster City for the MDR race. It was a little warm down there.

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hondapilot has had the "lepetomane" tag line for over a month!

Gives new meaning to "gassing your bike"! ;)

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DD,

Yes, Captcham and I saw that hill from the bottom looking up a couple of weeks ago. Didn't look like a good idea on the 990 (or anything else for that matter). The maps and GPS are pretty inaccurate back there. The trail at the bottom gets you out easily. Did you get over to the east overlook for the nice view of lower Rodriguez?

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We arrived pretty late in the afternoon, so after we got lost (and then found again) we headed back out of the area. Besides there were some hunters out near the end of one of the overlook trails. We decided not to go disturb them. <_<:D

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That video looks like the steep trail after we headed back up. Too bad your camera wasn't running when we were shuffling down that thing to the scary part! :D:blink:

Both the videos are the same, thing by the way.

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