The 2013 SoCal Holiday Excursion Recap: Part 1

**This is a recap of my vacation back to Southern California from 12/28/13-1/9/14.**

Seeing the familiar lights of Los Angeles from the window of that Southwest Airlines on that dark December night brought me to tears, and I sobbed with relief as the plane landed on the tarmac of LAX.

I was home again.

It had been six years since I had walked on my own familiar turf during the holiday season, and with the clouds I had anxiously waited to leave behind in Ohio, I was going to enjoy every second of it. After a relaxing evening with family (which included random conversations with Siri while eating leftover ribs), I hit the ground running on the first full day of my stay in Southern California.

A strange time to be super busy...!

January was quite...busy? What happened here?

Unlike last year where I had way too much time at home to think about things (thanks to my former employer's desire to be more economical with my paycheck), this year I'm finding myself happily knee-deep in motorcycle industry-related work. As a result, I'm not churning away at my blog like I traditionally have been during this time of the year.

To add to the bonus, we've had a freakishly mild (and relatively snow-less) winter out here in central Ohio. Thanks to that and a surprise influx of customers anticipating good riding days, I've found myself working quite a bit more at the motorcycle store and planning/scheduling bike events for what seems to be a warp speed course to the spring "riding season." Ice-less days and temps over 30°F have reduced car usage this season to next to nothing so daily commuting on the motorcycle has remained relatively normal. If only every winter in Ohio was like this EVERY year...I might actually like living here.

This was definitely NOT what winter looks like in Ohio right now. It was raining right after this short snow dump. Seriously.

So yeah, I'm not completely gone from the radar!!! Mind you, there's quite a few motorcycle journeys slated for 2012 so stay tuned for that. Eleanor's aiming for 150,000 miles on the odometer for this year and she's well on her way to that goal. She and I have pulled off more than 3000 miles since November alone, which is far from my traditional California numbers but a lot more than what most "riders" in this area will achieve in the warmth of summer. I'll be throwing in more out-of-region food reviews and other random rants as well. I'll be able to, eventually, free up more time in the schedule to contribute to the online fodder of this blog.

Don't forget, you can always follow some of my misadventures on my "alternate channel," my Twitter feed @2wheeledtourist. That's updated anytime during the day or if I find something strange to share. You can also see my tweets to the right of this blog entry in the Twitter window.

I'm still here, just running around with a smile on my face. And my head on fire.

Screw the calendar, I'm riding anyway!

For the last few weeks, I've seen the amount of motorcyclists on the road turn from a huge presence on the road to dwindling down to a couple machines very far and in between. There are times where I find myself to be the only motorcycle on I-270 on the way to work on cool mornings. Nothing has changed much; the days are getting shorter and temperatures have dropped anywhere between 10-20 degrees on average but are well above frost warning levels. For me and the other half, that just means pulling out the long-sleeved shirts, flipping the switch on the heated gear, and throwing on the insulated, waterproof riding boots. For everyone else it seems, riding "season" is over. And traditionally in Ohio, it ends the weekend before Labor Day regardless of how nice the weather is. Last year, that translated to thousands of riders willingly losing an extra month of summer-like weather because, let's face it, you can't ride past November...it just doesn't look right.

Are you kidding me? This is the time of year that we can be thankful for not getting scorched in 90 degree heat waves! The trees are turning all sorts of colors which is a sight to see in this part of the nation. And for those who ride year-round, it does provide a refreshing feeling that the "posers" are all gone for the fall/winter and won't show up until May. (You mean I won't encounter someone at the gas station who thinks I'm a whimp/astronaut/sissy/overdressed/Santa because I'm wearing ATGATT? Sweet!)

In a place where riding a motorcycle is more of a novelty than a form of transportation, I'll still be out there on my two-wheeled car until ice glazes the road and I can play shimmy hockey in my parking lot. Yes, even I have to draw a line somewhere, there's just no reason to do it at the moment.

Heated gloves!

It turns out that my solution to the waterproof motorcycle glove situation is a pair of Gerbing's heated gloves. It wasn't until the slight cold snap last Tuesday (it decided to stay below 50 degrees the entire day) that these are going to be necessary if I am to extend my riding season into the winter months. Being a Californian for my entire life and about to spend my first winter in the East Coast, the upgrade is probably going to be a necessity very soon. I have been fortunate to have spent most of my long distance riding in the summer months so the "wet" factor has always been there, especially in the very humid and sticky Southeast. The cold, on the other hand, only came in small pockets and usually not enough to have to justify a pair of electrically heated hand coverings.

So I went for a pair of these and Matt helped me hook them up to the bike battery. After switching them on I immediately felt the difference. It's a much cheaper solution to changing over to heated grips; there's a part of me that says this might be more effective than the former as well. Maybe I'll connect an electric liner underneath if it really starts to get bad. Gotta keep riding...I still have an annual mileage contest to finish!