Day 5 - High Sierra VROC Ride

The morning was beautiful, dry and cool with beautiful blue skies. I sure can't complain about the weather on this trip. Well, I guess I can complain a bit about the afternoon heat, but at least I've managed to stay dry! We had a ride planned at 9 a.m., so I got outside about 7:30 or so to clean some of the bugs off of Rose. I had cleaned the windshield and front in Wendover on Wednesday before I left, so what you see below is just one day of suicidal Nevada bugs. And the rest of her was pretty dirty and dusty as well.

Bugs in her teeth!

Not perfect, but a vast improvement!

The first leg was a ride to South Lake Tahoe for brunch. We took the long way, so it was about an hour of beautiful scenery.

Chuck Knoll and his grandson Peyton were in front of me on two of the three Kawasaki Vulcans in our "Vulcan" Riders and Owners group. We also have 2 Gold Wings, 1 Gold Wing trike, 2 Indians, a Can Am Spyder, and a Kawasaki Voyager. As we all age, the bikes get bigger and more comfortable, with more of the bells and whistles. We also have a Camry, an Equinox, a Kia Soul and a Honda Accord. You don't have to ride your bike to attend a VROC rally.

There was road work going on here and there, so we had a couple of lengthy delays.
 Out here they only have from May to October to do road repairs, so they get serious about it.
 I imagine the extremes of the weather are pretty hard on the pavement. 

Road construction delays just create an opportunity to get off the bike
(or out of the car) for photo ops and socializing.

Ooohhh, what kind of fun is around that curve up there??

A trip to Heidi's for breakfast is a tradition for this rally, and a great choice for breakfast!
I had a delicious skillet breakfast. There were a couple of enormous waffles that looked wonderful,
 but it looked like dessert for breakfast! They were loaded with fruit and whipped cream. 

On our way out of Tahoe, we had a beautiful ride north along the entire length of the lake. 

Another construction delay. This is Kevin "Wolf" Rose on a beautiful
Indian Chieftain. Kevin is from Washington state.

The first two bikes behind me are "Six Pack" Jack Ward, a retired doctor from Savannah
on the yellow Gold Wing, and his brother-in-law Carl Reavis from North Carolina on a Kawasaki Voyager.

The lake views are breathtaking. The pictures don't do it justice.

We saw a lot of these guys - I actually got him to smile, though it doesn't show in the photo :-)

Parked at the summit of Mt. Rose, 8,911 ft. elevation.

Unfortunately my camera battery died on the ride to Virginia City. The town is all still in its original state, and very touristy. I didn't get any photos there, but I'll try to steal some from Sherm and Skid when they post them in their blogs. It was a beautiful ride to get there, great curvy road and beautiful views. I wish I would have charged all of my camera batteries the night before. By the time I realized I had left them on the bike, I was already in my jammies and in for the night, so I didn't go back down to get them. I wish I had put my jeans back on and gone out, I missed a lot of great scenery.

I managed to resurrect one battery for one photo at the Genoa Saloon,
the oldest original bar in Nevada. A cool old moonshine still. This was our last stop for the day.

EDIT: I borrowed some of Sherm's pictures from our ride and Virginia City yesterday. Sherm LOVES to take pictures, and he must have a better supply of batteries than I do!

Now that's a blueberry waffle!

Parking in Virginia City was interesting...

In search of ice cream :-)

Feed the donkey a carrot for $1, take a photo with it for $2.

Ice cream success!

I need one of these for Lily!

I need one of these for my front yard!

I was born in Tulsa :-)

Well, time to get dressed and get downstairs to fight with the installation of a couple of new headlight bulbs. Sometime yesterday I lost both low beams, so had to ride with high beams the remainder of the day. Installing headlight bulbs on a Gold Wing requires a contortionist with small hands. I'm hoping one of these guys who have had Gold Wings for years will give me a hand. It could take me all day!

I'm not sure where I'm riding to today, but I will be riding more of these beautiful roads before I head out tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'll get photos posted this evening, because I plan to depart pretty early. What the heck, the sun's up at 5 a.m., I may as well be on the road in the cool morning!