Had a long day yesterday travelling along Highway 1 - left San Simeon at 8am in thick fog and it was very chilly. Took a couple of hours for the sun to break through and by the time we reached Los Angeles it was very hot. We don't like cities when riding on a bike, so just looked at the famous parts and moved on before the roads totally jammed up with rush hour traffic. The only saving grace is that you can filter through the traffic which you can't do in any other of the US states. Whilst stopped at a fuel station having a welcome cold drink, a local police motorcyclist stopped to check us out and we ended up having a good chat. Interestingly, he was carrying a pump action shotgun on the back of his bike! He did say that he had never had to use it.

 

 

I think the above rates as the worst meal so far! I ordered a caesar salad with salmon - the salmon was ok but I have never seen so much foliage - wasn't quite sure what might crawl out of it!

 

Today we are in San Diego where John had booked his bike in for a service - we have now completed just over 6000 miles. Spent a good few hours there talking to some very interesting people. A chap called John Hermann came into the shop to have a new tyre fitted and it turned out he has written a book called 'The Alps and Beyond' which the store had in stock. He gave me a copy to look through and he said that he has travelled to Europe twice a year for the last 20 years documenting all the alpine passes. He is now 83 years old and still riding a BMW.

 

 

The Russian Ural sidecar is still alive and kicking. The added accessory on the front of the sidecar would be useful making a path on the M25 during rushhour:-) We were assured it was a toy:-)