This is a continuation of Pit Ho weekend started on The Night Patrol.

Budman, the rally organizer, secured a fantastic rate at the Best Western Amador Hotel in Jackson, California. It’s rare to get a weekend reservation at an actual hotel for under 100 bucks a night. He did it at 95. What I appreciated most about the hotel was that the blackout shades sat in tracks, so when the shade was down, the room was dark. Not sort of dark, pitch black!

Due to the blackout darkness, I slept, and I slept hard. I’m sure 20 motorcycles started up and left while I was dead to the world. I was okay with that; so much of this season for me has been going; a little bit of stop and smell the roses is okayfor today. Breakfast was just before 10, and I spent the rest of the morning noodling on last night’s blog post: The Night Patrol. I didn’t even walk out to see my motorcycle until 1 o’clock. I mean – who even does that on a motorcycle weekend?

It turns out there are at least three others. I knew the green Royal Einfeld got up early and went fishing – but the others? I’m assuming they were as chill as I was. Had I been more aggressive, I had thoughts of going up to Ice House, across Wentworth Springs, maybe including South Lake Tahoe, and back down to Jackson. But alas, this wasn’t the weekend for agro. I wanted to ride up Highway 88 and see where the day took me. Like an old friend, Highway 88 and I go way back. Highway 88’s Carson Pass is a dear favorite of mine, and all of the asphalt between me and that pass is good, too.

But ultimately, I just wanted to get out of the heat. With such a late departure, temperatures were already well into the 90s, with projections indicating they would likely reach very close to 100. I soaked my T-shirt and prayed for some evaporative cooling as I started to climb the mountain. While I wasn’t going to win any wet T-shirt contest as a nearly 50-year-old guy, the age-old wet T-shirt works fantastic on a motorcycle. I won’t say I was cold, but I was far closer to comfortable than miserable as the warm air blew across the wet T-shirt causing the water to evaporate and cooling me off. About 45 minutes into the ride, I was about 6000 feet and enjoying the day immensely.

If you pushed me, I would say that Caples Lake is my favorite stop along the entirety of Highway 88. There is something about that body of water, the rugged peaks around it, and the whimsical trees that dot the landscape. I parked a bit further up the lake than I usually do, pushing myself not to take the same pictures each year. Once I got settled, I saw another rider on a cruiser-style bike looking out over the lake. We struck up an informal conversation. His wife kicked him out of the house as she and her girlfriends were having a ladies’ afternoon. We both laughed at the sacrifice he was making on behalf of their relationship. I joked that he should make sure she knows what a sacrifice it is to ride a motorcycle all over the Sierras. He laughed and said, “She will want to go for a ride after all of her friends go home.” I laughed back, “You married right, didn’t you?”

We both smiled. I often laugh with people who ride bikes; I always enjoy talking about them. He spoke of his. I spoke of mine. I asked if the Mormon Emigrant Trail was open, as the Forest Service noted that it was closed. He said he went 100 mph on that road. He advised me to watch out for the snow and some fallen rocks, but overall, it was a good ride. I’m guessing the Forest Service just hasn’t finished all of the annual maintenance, but it was passable on a motorcycle. I’ll mark that piece of pavement for a future trip; however, it’s good to know that the road is open(ish).

Dinner was an easy walk from the hotel into downtown Jackson. As much as I’ve been up and down 88, I have spent an abysmally small amount of time here. With the advent of Google Maps, I’ve always routed around the center of town on Ridge Road headed for the Sierras – never needing to stop here. What I discovered was an graceful downtown from a bygone area. Conversations across this group of riders seem to all rally around the fact that the town wanted visitors. Most of the old storefronts had new businesses catering to tourists, but the evening traffic felt light – even on a Saturday.

I know a lot is going on in politics these days – and I, like most Americans, have a lot to say – however, I won’t go down that rabbit hole in this post. I will say, as a proud Californian, we’ve got to think about both rural and urban California as we make policy going forward. Cities can’t crowd out the needs of more rural populations. It’s easy to see the struggling urban neighborhoods on the evening news. However, I’ve seen a change of silent decay in some rural parts of the state over the past 20 years I’ve been on two wheels. I’m hopeful that someone can balance urban and rural interests as a candidate for governor in 2026.

With the changes in working habits and locations brought on by the pandemic, rural California should be included in that conversation. How do urban, suburban, and rural areas benefit from popluation movements. We need to consider forest management. We have to think about growing industries here out in more cost effective areas of the state. We need to consider affordability across the state. We’ve got to think about housing. Both urban and rural California should benefit from our growth, and that’s not always happening in a symbiotic fashion.

Jackson is a neat place. Budman chose right. Getting out here on a Friday was easy, and it served as a great home base for a three-day weekend but could easily be extended into a four or five-day rally with good rides each day. I had to laugh scanning the local real estate ads. The termites liked this particular listing, LOL.

Dinner was outstanding at Luka’s. The staff were wonderfully accommodating to our burgeoning group of 20 – even creating separate checks for each of us. As a bonus, each receipt contained a QR code to pay the bill. Fantastic!

While I’ve been a member of the Bay Area Rider’s Forum for nearly 20 years (no, wait, that’s over 20 years), I’ve been a lurker for just about all of my time there. Through life’s experiences, my journey now brings me to this community. I’m in that awkward phase where I’m new enough that I’m not old, but I’m old enough that I’m not new. It’s that awkward teenage phase of joining a group that you have to push through and get over my social anxieties and fear of being slowpokes on the bike. I enjoyed dinner tonight. I got to know two solid members of the forum and talked a lot about photography, life, and single malt scotch. I’ll call that a win.

After about a half-hour at the local bar, “The Main Event,” talking with motoproponent about our shared love of blogging, we both decided it was time to head back to the hotel to crash. As I thought about it, I did read his blog back in the day. Family and kids understandably took him away from the blogosphere, but I’m still tickled that he reads mine.

As I was getting ready, N texted and asked if I wanted a ride home together. Of course I do! N was on his KTM 950 Super Moto, which is a high-energy monster full of fun. The key piece of pavement on his radar was Railroad Flat – a squiggle of asphalt that’s been at least 10 years in my history book. I’m down!

We headed back up Highway 88 but caught Highway 26 back down towards the valley. I didn’t recognize Highway 26’s off-camber turns nearly as much when I did this road last year as I was climbing uphill. Uphill on a motorcycle seems to fix all your mistakes, whereas downhill, points them all out. Ouch! N didn’t have directions on his bike, and I didn’t know really where he wanted to go, so we played a little bit of track and backtrack, but we finally got to Railroad Flat.

In the beginning Railroad Flat is an adventurous ride. Pavement quality isn’t so excellent (which the GS handles like a champ), and pavement width gets fairly tight – especially with country boys in big pickup trucks moving with speed coming from the other direction on a squiggle of pavement with no double yellow and barely a lane wide. After a few miles, Railroad Flat settled down and became a fantastic piece of pavement – out to Highway 49. One to do again when I’m in the area. Plus N got an awesome photo of me on the bike. Sweet! I have a new phone wallpaper!

By the time we got to Angels Camp, my tail was looking for a break. We’d been riding for about 90 minutes, and with the heat, my backside was starting to demand a stretch. N drove into the old part of Angels Camp, and much like Jackson, I’d been through here many times but never took the time to stop. In N’s pursuit of finding coffee on a Sunday morning in town, we did a reasonable amount of walking around, and a lot of me just enjoyed taking the city in. We settled on the ice cream shop as they had espresso, and I wasn’t averse to a bit of a cool, tasty treat in the 90° weather all around us. The Parlor totally delivered. You could taste the love in that hand made cookie dough ice cream.

I often think of the Sierras as closed from November to May – but towns like Jackson, Sonora, and Angels Camp remain open throughout the year and rarely have snow. While it does require a crossing of the Central Valley, a Friday night to Sunday afternoon weekend with the heated gear on a warmer winter weekend could be a real possibility. My wheels are now turning for wintertime destinations that aren’t the coast.

N and I continued to head west – we tried to stop at the overlook for Mount Diablo, but the haze from the Canadian wildfires cloaked the mountain in smoke. Unfortunately, I was foiled again in capturing the hill from afar. At this point, the ride was all about time and miles. N’s KTM 950 SM, while fast, flickable, and fun, was not one of its selling points in terms of fuel longevity. He was hunting for gas at about 130 miles. The GS (and I have the small tank) starts looking at 200 miles. The large GS Adventure tanks gets 320 miles with it’s 8 gallons of heft!

By the time we reached the Bay Area, it was late enough in the day that we could’ve stopped for lunch, but close enough to say screw it, let’s get home. I was enjoying the ride and the company and remembered a neat little restaurant called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot next to the Antioch harbor. While coming down the mountain, I keyed in ‘WTF’ to the GPS and didn’t think much of it. 

I made a wrong turn on Highway 4 and got a bit turned around. The GPS indicated that I was going to a shopping mall in Antioch, which didn’t seem right as that was nowhere near the water. I kept battling between my memory and the GPS on how to get us to the waterfront eatery I remembered. I had a hunch that N didn’t want to stop at a shopping mall in 90° weather in Antioch. Neither did I.

After a few more circles in my mind and one more search in Google Maps, of course, there were two locations of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The one I wanted was an Oakley, not Antioch. Even then, the directions in Google Maps weren’t obvious. Take the last exit before you see the tollbooth, even though Google Maps thinks there’s some magical exit before the tolling authority. The Bay Area Tolling Authority didn’t think so either.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot reminds me a little bit of Margaritaville sitting right on the Delta with boats all around in the Antioch bridge in the distance. There was a surprisingly strong and cool breeze, which was welcome for two exhausted and hot riders. The menu is solid, and the prices are more than reasonable. WTF is going to be a regular spot for me when riding through the Delta.

After a fine bowl of chili in a breadbowl, it was time to get chilly. Just 10 mins down the 4 the temps dropped another 15 degrees crossing Willow Pass. Score!

I want to say thanks to N and Budman for a great weekend up in the hills. Looking forward to the next one.