SGV HOG's Wild Ride to the Kern River

This weeks blog was sent to us by the San Gabriel Valley HOG chapter. They had a fun trip to the Kern River with some unexpected twists! Thanks to Lon for writing this recap. Enjoy!

This weekend’s ride was the most life threatening, with potential for disaster, in the history of this chapter!! Now that I have your attention I will cover this calamity later on in this recap.

Saturday morning 24 riders and passengers on 13 bikes and one car left the donut shop at 8 a.m. for the Roadhouse Restaurant at Kramer Junction on highway 395 for breakfast.

After we filled our bellies and gas tanks we continued on north to Randsburg for a short stop to get rid of some of the coffee we had at breakfast and some lite shopping. It’s always amazing to watch my wife Robin shop when the time is limited. That woman can really move, so don’t get in her way. Instead of returning to 395 north we decided to take the back way out of Randsburg to highway 14 north to highway 178 west. This saved us about 15 to 20 miles. Highway 178 is fairly scenic with lots of sweepers and rolling hills. As we got closer to Lake Isabella we started to see cattle ranches on our right. I almost caught some of those happy cows (future steaks) playing soccer. We made it into Kernville about 1:30 p.m. and spent about an hour sight seeing, shopping and snacking.

On the way out of town we filled our gas tanks and headed north 15 miles to McNally’s Fairview Lodge. After check-in and unpacking everyone set about exploring or just relaxing and enjoying everyone’s company. The people that had the trailers thought they were “cute”. Jenny liked them so much she made a reservation to come back in August. Most everyone ended up on the patio behind the restaurant which is on the Kern River. We were getting a nice cool breeze there as it was nearly 100 degrees.

At 6 p.m. everyone gathered in the lodge restaurant for dinner. Everyone ordered some kind of steak except Randy. I think he has something against cows that play soccer. Most everyone thought the steaks were some of the finest they have ever had or close to it. I won‘t talk about how huge and delicious the mud pie deserts were. I don’t want people to think we are a bunch of food crazed pigs (HOGS). After dinner we considered roasting some “peeps” but they were in hiding and could not be found. So we broke up into two groups. The “beer group” went to the patio and the “Jim Beam group” went to the porch area in front of their rooms. When the “Jim Beamers” ran out they joined the “beer group“. This lasted till about 10 p.m. when most everyone retired to their rooms.

Now you are probably wondering “what about this potential life threatening disaster?” Well my little ones be patient and don’t bust your vest extenders I will get to that soon.

In the wee early hours of the morning “when sh-t happens!”, Robin and I were in our room minding our own business and dreaming about the next day’s ride when at about 1:45 a.m. we hear this pounding on the wall. We thought our neighbors next door (who will remain nameless at this time) were having some kind of wild lovin’. We decided to ignore the pounding. After about 15 minutes we discovered that the pounding was coming from the door and we could hear our names being called. I opened the door to find Cindy eerily silhouetted by a flashing light and a whole lot of smoke and the smell of something burning (kind of reminded me of Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone). She informed me that the fire department had informed the lodge to be ready to evacuate on a moment’s notice. There is a forest fire one mile north of us and across the river.

The danger was if the wind kicked up, the fire would jump the river and then burn towards us. Robin and I got dressed, packed up and loaded the bike. Everyone gathered in front of Dale’s room waiting for further instructions. The owner of the lodge had gotten a hold of Randy by land line as there was no cell phone reception in the canyon. Randy was staying at a B & B four miles above the fire. I told him to stay there as it was safer. The scary part was that the fire had burned for awhile before anyone reported it. Campers across the river from the fire decided to go down to the lodge where the only land line was to report the fire. So kids, we all (except Randy) could have been toast as everyone slept if the fire had jumped the river.

We all camped out in front of Dale’s room for about an hour wondering what idiot started this fire that could possibly screw up our next day’s ride. Being true bikers we tried to make light of it. Someone came up with a story that the “peeps” were making their escape up the river and were caught by campers. The campers decided to roast their prisoners and during the ensuing battle a fire started. After all the stories had been told it was 3 a.m. We decided to go to our rooms to sleep as the fire department said they would return if things got worse and evacuate us. Everyone slept in their clothes that night.

It was Sunday morning and the Harley God was looking out for us as the wind did not kick up, the fire did not jump the river and most important the road was still open. Everyone got ready, we had our riders meeting at 7:45 a.m. on what “not” to do while riding on mountain roads. We were off at 8 a.m. to pick up Randy on the way to The Trail of 100 Giants. A mile up the road we passed a bunch of fire crews and a large burn area that was still burning with hot spots and helicopters dropping water, it looked pretty bad. Those guys really did a good job controlling the fire.

About 45 minutes later we were at the trail. Less than half of us went to see these huge trees while the ones with hangovers and lack of sleep stayed in the parking lot. Next we were off to the Ponderosa Lodge for breakfast. The lodge is located in a beautiful forest setting at 7,200 feet and a very pleasant 75-80 degrees. They had a table set up for us on the patio so we had great scenery. Everyone ordered a conventional breakfast except Randy whom wanted egg beaters. The waitress promptly informed Randy they only serve “mountain food!”. I guess she felt sorry for him and said she was going to take care of him like she takes care of her flower garden. So Randy’s new handle is “Pansy!!”. After a great meal we assembled out front for a group photo.

The 45 mile 90 minute ride to Porterville was very scenic with lots of twisties and short sweepers and luckily the road was very clean of gravel. As we arrived in Porterville the temperature was 108. We stopped for gas and lots of water and then headed home down Hwy 65 to Hwy 99 to 5 frwy to 210 frwy to the San Gabriel Valley and reality. Other than almost being toasted in a forest fire, everyone had a great time. And that’s the way it was.
-Lon