Putting More Miles on the Ducati

The weather forecast for the weekend has a sunny Saturday and a wet Sunday. Easiest decision of the week, I'm going for a ride on Saturday!

Of course, now the question is where to ride? Well, I decide I'm going to ride down 1 through Big Sur again - for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there's no fog, it should be a spectacular ride. Secondly, given the high probability that some of these storms will soon close Highway 1 (thanks to the likely mud slides that will occur on the fire scarred hillsides), do it now while I can.

This time I rode all the way down to Lucia before stopping. Below is the Ducati sitting in the parking lot of the restaurant and store there - I stopped for a candy bar before heading back up.

One the way back up, I stopped at the vista point south of the Big Creek Bridge for another photo opportunity. The bridge in the background is where I'm riding to next.

There was hardly anyone on the road, so I really got to enjoy the bike and the ride. On the way back up, at the condor spot I see the biologist waving her aerial around tracking the condors, so I pull over and end up chatting with her and some other bird spotter for around 20 minutes - saw a couple of condors and learned more about these big birds.

After that, as I rode back up towards Monterey again, I noticed smoke in the air - a few miles later I came across a wildfire that was not that far from the highway. There were gusty winds and the fire was one hill behind the hill nearest the road and it was moving towards the road with some pace.

I took a couple of photos and then headed out.
On the way up, fire vehicles were heading down - hopefully tomorrow's rain will put it out if it's not already out.