1000 miles to paint a house

[pdedse]

First half of Wednesday was spent helping my buddy spray the exterior of the house. He has all the right tools and it was fun watching him work efficiently and quickly, no non-sense type of guy when working. Has several of his family members working with him and they all seem to know what to do...lots of crazy energy, do-this-don't-do-that, get out of the way, help me now...all spiced up with lots of jokes and stories. I'd never spent any realy time in Eureka and he filled me in with lots of details.

I've painted 5 homes before on my own and worked with a professional paint crew for two summers back in the day so I enjoy the work--such a nice break from the day job. And I like learning techniques from others, see how they do things. 8am to 7pm...paint!

Same for Thursday except we left the late afternoon for a ride that turned out to be one of the craziest, albeit relatively short rides that I've ever done. True to his nature, my friend simply said let's go for a ride and w/out a word of explanation we tood off on 101 south out of Eureka. Then we turned off at hiway 211 and headed towards Ferndale:



From Ferndales's cemetery the overlook is gorgeous with the seemingly everpresent ocean haze hanging about:




Then we headed back into Ferndale and waited for his daughter to catch up with us who was trailing us in the family paint pick-up because she wanted to come along for the ride, but dad didn't want her on the back of his GS for this trip. We chatted a moment with her then he simply says "this will be fun", flipped his visor down and took off.

He's a good, confident rider who grew up dirtbike riding and has little fear of taking corners in all sorts of road conditions...I'm not. But he knows this as we have done long trips before... and is patient. I do my best to stay close to him over likely the twistiest, uneven pavement I've ever been on. Not the best for the CB1100's suspension, but on his GS1200 he was having a blast. We both were really, but mine had a lot of "oh my" moments as he was pushing me beyond what I'm used to. It was good, though...when I felt over my head I just slowed for a moment to breathe and refocus. He'd let me catch up and ask if I was good--the late afternoon shadows in the heavily forested area was a challenge for my eyes, but we kept it up over 35 miles and eventually broke free from the trees to be greeted by the coast:



Can you spot him? Here's there somewhere along that road:


We road along the coast for about 10 miles before heading inland towards Petrolia:


He and his daughter gave me a head start and so I took off to see how long I could hold him off. I was caught off guard by some animals I spied--so we stopped for a shot of ZEBRAS!!!





Was not expectating that! He has ridden this route at least 50 times and said that the seeing zebras was a first for him, too.

I think we were in Humboldt county or in the area--I learned it's the region famous for cannibus farms...and the smell was obvious as we made our way through the never-ending curves up and down the many farms. At Humboldt Redwoods park we switched bikes as he was curous about the CB1100.









We made our way back to 101 and he said his initial impression of the CB was that it was extremely smooth and had more power than expected. We got on 101 as it was getting cool and I was fully clothed but he had on sweat pants so on the CB he began to feel the temps as we as riding a naked bike vs his well protected GS. We had a blast at 75-100mph heading north back to Eureka, hardly any cars about. I was in 6th on his GS and it went from 70 to 105mph in a few blinks of an eye. Quite fun. But I'm tall and as is always the case, the fairing on his GS shoved the wind right smack into my forehead. Still, great bike, spectacular riding.