After going to China Lake in California, I started thinking about Jerry and his attempt to make it out there and see what it's like. In this spirit, I continued up north and ended up going back to San Francisco. Like the last time I was there, San Francisco sucked. I went and took pictures of the Golden Gate, Alcatraz and China Beach. I enjoyed watching the dead whale being hauled out to sea, and got completely weirded out because of the people making friends with the dead whale and naming it "Bo-Bo"...not to mention giving the whale flowers. Damn, those people are stupid. Speaking of stupid and California, I was in the HD dealer in San Jose and went to pay for my t-shirt. I started talking to the woman cashing me out, and explained to her (because she asked why I was out there) that I was there to see this really wonderful lake they had...."just west of the Golden Gate Bridge". This ding-a-ling started naming all these local lakes. I finally asked her (based on her accent) where she was from. She said "I'm from North Carolina". I replied "oh, you guys have a neat lake out there just east from there too....looks like this one out here". This made it worse because then she started naming lakes out in North Carolina that might've looked like the lakes in California. Damn, how do you win? I left there in San Jose and heard about a mountain just outside town which was the tallest point around. Mt Hamilton was the one. Yep, it was the tallest point. At just under 5000 feet, it was a unique ride up there to the observatory. This road would rival the Dragon in Deal's Gap. The road wasn't as good of shape, but just as curvy. By coincidence, the Dragon is Hwy 129. The highway to Mt Hamilton was Hwy 130. When I finally reached the top, San Jose had disappeared into the huge rolling hills and mountain faces. As I looked back at the road I'd rode up, and watched the wildlife around there, it was cool. Jerry, you missed a good one on it. Maybe when you get those forks put back together and I get time again, we'll make a run out there.
