Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday to me...

Well at least I've lost some of that belly over the past three months!

Wow, I can’t believe that I’m now 67 years old, where did all those damn years go? I don’t feel any older, I don’t act any older and I’m certainly not going to start growing up, I’m way to old for that. As the saying goes, “Growing old is unavoidable, Growing up is optional!” So for the foreseeable future I give full advance warning that I’m going to be just as stupid as I've always been. So there!

It’s been a great birthday so far with greetings from far and wide as well as my great friends Taz and Joel popping in on Skype this morning just to add to the greeting. Sue took me for a spin in her Mini Cooper S around some of the lanes. Don’t tell her I said so, but I think she missed her vocation… as a rally driver!!! Seriously though, it was huge fun and she is a fantastic and highly competent driver… just damn fast and I loved it!

You go first... no you go first !!!
Susy with her Mini Cooper in the background

Not sure what’s planned for later, at the moment I'm sitting typing this wearing what little is left of my clothes that I haven’t stuck in the washing machine. It will be nice to leave here (albeit, reluctantly) tomorrow with a clean bag of clothes once more, the last time was in Creston with Taz & Joel and before that in Edmonton with cousin Rosemarie. Otherwise it’s the old traveller’s trick of washing them as I wash myself in the shower. It works and is certainly better than nothing and getting them dry is easy down here where it is so hot.

Yesterday I took a ride out to a biker’s haunt called Alice’s Restaurant. Now if any of you out there are country / folk fans, you may just remember in the dim and distant past a recording by Arlo Guthrie from 1967 by the same name. So of course I had to ask whilst eating my Le Mans Burger, which came first the song or the restaurant. Well as the restaurant opened in 1960 one can assume that it was the inspiration for the song, but that is pure conjecture, as being in the USA, I don’t want any laws suites dropping on my door step thank you! Sue had given me superb and very full instructions on how to get there so… yes, you guessed it I missed a turn, ended up on the freeway, went miles out of my way and ended up approaching from completely the wrong direction, but at least I finally got there. As I said at the start, it is a big biker’s haunt, that’s not to say that the food is any good, think McD rather than gourmet; I’ve certainly eaten and made far better burgers in my time ( but then that’s a lot of time and a lot of burgers…)

If the burger didn't quite hit the spot then the road certainly did. For once I wasn't fully (over?) loaded, having left my clothes, tents and a heap of other stuff back at Sue’s  They had our old friends “bends” in them and a bit like the road through the redwoods a week or so back there were more than you could shake a stick at. In fact those bends of a week back had given me a bit of practise and the day just got better as I homed in on the Tupperware Tornado in front of me piloted by it’s young Wok Jockey. I'm afraid those damn voices were back again and they just MADE me do it, honest officer, it wasn't my fault. I’d almost forgotten how well The Beast could swing the curves, but boy, she can still cut the mustard when you show her the whip and put the hammer down! Pegs a scraping I chased him through the bends and up and over the mountain. I haven’t been such a hooligan for a long time and probably won’t be again, well not on this trip anyway; as from here on east I have no planned stops other than camp grounds on which to dump my stuff… but then this stop wasn't exactly planned. As I said to Sue this morning, my idea was to camp nearby and take her to dinner in a small gesture of thanks for her kindness way back in North Dakota. That feels like a lifetime ago now. But I've ended up as the recipient of so much more kindness, as she has opened her home and her heart  to me. Please, don’t anyone ever try to tell me that it is a big bad world out there ever again. It's not it's full of lovely, kind, generous people like Susy!

Suzy at the wheel of her beloved Mini Cooper S