Hanford Weekend Ride - May 5, 2001

Submitted by
Steve Morris, Torrance, California

As part of our full calendar of events for 2001, CA Chapter #3 revisited the historic town of Hanford in the Central Valley of California, the " Bread Basket of America".

We met at 9:30 AM Saturday May 5 at Cycle Gear in the Santa Clarita Valley with 16 bikes for a total of 27 riders. The weather was perfect with clear blue skies, warm temperatures and hardly any wind. Chuck Meyer was our road captain and planned our scenic route. We enjoyed the winding roads in the canyons leading north out to Antelope Valley and stopped at the California Poppy Reserve. Our state flower was in full bloom with fields of gold covering the hillsides as far as the eyes could see. Really something to behold! Awesome! Beautiful! We stopped at the Visitor Center and learned about the poppies and other wildflowers in the Reserve. We socialized again and look at the other bikes to see if we could find something useful for our own bikes.

We left the Antelope Valley and continued north on I-15 up over the Grapevine and Fort Tejon at 4144 feet. There were more hills covered with poppies and lupine and other wild flowers. It was an artist's palette. We stopped for lunch and gas at Wheeler Ridge and got to know the newcomers. Then it was down into the Central Valley where we passed endless groves of pecans, grapes, almonds, pomegranates, oranges and kiwi.

We arrived in Tulare at 4:30 P.M. where we had reservations at Motel 6 for the whole group. After a brief rest we met at 5 PM for the 15-minute ride to Hanford. Hanford is home to the Imperial Dynasty Restaurant, which was founded in 1883 by the Wing family and is nationally famous. Surprisingly, they do not serve Chinese but Continental cuisine. We had been there several times before and will certainly return! Before dinner we had a brief business meeting where we voted to do this type of ride more often. There are so many scenic areas within a 200-mile radius of Los Angeles. After dinner we sang Happy Birthday to Josie Morris, enjoyed dessert and rode back to Tulare for a well-deserved rest. The evening was still warm and some socialize under the stars and moonlight.

Sunday morning at 7 AM we met at Apple Annie's next door to the motel for breakfast. They have a model train and railroad running around the ceiling with local scenery painted as a background.

Chuck had us back on the road at 8 AM where we wound our way into the Sequoia National Forest. The views and roads on Highway 155 were outstanding as we climbed through oak forests into pine forests at the higher elevations up to 6,500 feet. This is one of the best mountain roads that were enjoyed by everyone. We headed south to Lake Isabella with its quaint town. Two of our bikes split company and headed home to avoid the city traffic via Highway 14.

Larry Smith took over from Chuck as Road Captain and led us down the mountain into the Central Valley on Highway 178 with its sharp turns until we stopped for lunch at Wheeler Ridge again. At the lunch stop we met a group of 13 Burbank motor officers out on a Sunday ride on their police bikes. From there we headed home and got to see the spectacular colorful hillside again and back into Los Angeles traffic.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend with perfect weather, scenic mountains and lakes, great roads and good friends including some new ones.

Our newest member Jim Close recently moved here from France and his wife, Rachelle, just arrived 2 weeks ago. This was her first ride in America and she was thrilled with this first experience.