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Springtime on the Pacific Coast Highway

April 15, 2004 - Laguna Beach, California to Phoenix, Arizona
8 hours, 50 minutes - 421 miles

TODAY'S MAP: (from the H.O.G. members trip planner & MapQuest)
4 15 map

Tax Day. The end of the California Coast and the beginning of the trip into the desert. The day that it finally happened after nearly 30,000 miles on this particular motorcycle ... the day I ran out of gas.

The day started OK - an early start from Laguna Beach, a quick breakfast, coffee and a newspaper in San Diego and then off to the east. I got to Yuma and passed by without stopping for fuel. What the heck possesed me to pass by a known fuel source before heading off into what could have been a good 150 miles of nothing, I'll never know. For some reason, I looked at the fuel gauge, saw it at 1/2 and thought to myself, "self, you'll be fine until the next exit, keep going." Well, about 45 miles later, there was the next exit that even had a sign that said "GAS, FOOD, LODGING" - that exit was at Tacna, Arizona. For those of you who may be reading this who ma be familiar with this area and are now chuckling to yourself, hold tight while I let the rest of the crowd in on the joke. Tacna, Arizona DID have a gas station some time back. It wasn't there now, but there HAD been one, so the proud residents of Tacna informed me.

So, here I am now at 'E' with about 98 miles on the odometer and with a reported 26 miles until "Dateland" where there is an active Exxon station. No sweat, I think to myself - that'll be about 124 mile total since last gas and I know that I've gone almost 140 before, so this shouldn't be an issue. Remember that two days ago near Lompoc, CA, I had nearly run out of gas and I had known in my genius head at that time that I had this whole fuel equation thing nailed down tight.

At 116 miles on the odometer, my throttle no longer worked.

Oops. I forgot about one critical thing. Fuel economy at 90-95 MPH on the interstate into a headwind isn't quite what it is at 40-50 MPH on California 1...

Now, here's where having good karma points piled up pays off. I coasted to a stop right behind an SUV that was behind, you guessed it - a motorcycle. Turns out that Dad was returning from San Diego with his Fatboy. Mom and the boys were following him home to eastern Arizona. Dad had stopped to adjust his jacket and take a short break. Dad was returning the bike home, I later learned, because oldest son, now in the car with mom, had, um, borrowed the Fatboy the night before and ridden to San Diego. I had a feeling that son was now grounded until he was 30, but it wasn't any of my business. At any rate, mom and the boys offered to give me a ride to the next exit and the aforementioned Exxon station.

I arrived at Dateland and purchased a small gas can and 2 gallons of super. Now, to get back the 25 odd mile west again to my bike... Those karma points were still paying off. There happened to be a group of eco-tourists on a BLM/Forest Service tour of ancient desert petroglyphs on their way back to Yuma from out at Painted Rock park. One of the vehicles had a spare seat available and they offered to give me a ride back west again.

The value of today's karma points? A grand total of 50 minutes from running out of gas to being back on the road again. That kind of luck will never happen again in my life. I actually bought a lottery ticket that evening, but since the odds of winning those things are millions of times worse than meeting nice people on the road, I lost.

I owe all of those folks a huge debt of thanks for all their help. And I pass a lot fewer gas stations now.

I rolled in to the outskirts of Phoenix at about 4:00 and called up a friend of mine who;s my counterpart at our company's TV station in town. I stopped in for a little "busman's holiday" and then headed off to teh local La Quinta for the night.

GO to the next day of the trip

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