Another beautiful California day today – perfect for riding.  We headed off early to Ventura Harley-Davidson, another of our favourite California Dealers.  Tracy and Mikki had put on an amazing feast, – bacon and eggs, pastries, hash browns and opened the store early for a shopping expedition! They surprised us further with gift bags with a free t-shirt, riding glasses and some very popular chocolate truffles.

Ventura Harley-Davidson held a fundraising ride for Amazon Heart earlier this year called Heels and Wheels, and is following up by raffling two beautiful scooters to raise more money!  Tickets are $10 and you have a one in 500 chance of winning – email Megan at megan@amazonheart.org to get your ticket now!  Drawn in October!

The local newspaper came out to visit us as did some members of the local HOG chapter, and some more of the Amazon motorcycle club.  The night before at the Greek restaurant we had seen wildfires on lighting up the night sky as they burned along the hills above Ventura.

The local HOG members gave us the news that the route we had chosen would take us through the heart of the fires, and that many of the roads had closed and provisional evacuation orders were in effect near Ojai.  With their help we plotted a new route to take us north to Santa Barbara.

Luckily we skirted the worst of the fires and the smoke, and found some new beautiful roads to ride.  We arrived in Santa Barbara a little late, but found our parking spot on the beach for a photo in front of the gorgeous water and the Pier.

After lunch it was back on the bikes and on a fantastic twisty road through the San Marcos pass, diving down past Lack Cachuma and then on through quirky Solvang to our hotel at Buellton.

Tomorrow we continue north to one of our favourite overnight stops – Cambria, our home base before our ride up Big Sur.


Meredith models the pink scooter being raffled off by Ventura Harley-Davidson


Breakfast stop at Ventura Harley-Davidson


Ventura HOG members who rode with us to Carpinteria


Lunch stop in Santa Barbara