Isabella, Bodfish-Caliente, and more…

Mostly photos today, folks, from my Subie trip a couple of days ago with Marty up to Lake Isabella.

First, a word or two about that photo you see above…it’s an awesome Lake Isabella panorama shot!    There’s more to that photo…if you click on it, it will open in a new window and you’ll see it all.   I can only stick photos here in the blog that are 650 pixels wide, but this one is 900 pixels and part of it gets covered up by whatever is off to the right in the blog margin.   So click on it with your mouse and you’ll see it full size.

The Isabella panorama shot is an interesting picture…I took 11 photos of nearly the entire lake, and then I stitched them together digitally.   Photoshop (the program I use for editing my photos) lets you do this, and the effect is pretty cool.

There’s a lot going on in the photo above…you’re seeing a 270-degree sweep.   The left side of the photo is the south end of the lake, it sweeps through to the north shore, end then it heads south again to the side I’m standing on.   The intense colors are due to the polarizer I used on my Tokina wide angle lens.   And then, of course, there are the mountains reflected in the lake.  Cool stuff!

This is a story about a ride I’ve done a few times on the Bodfish-Caliente Road, one of California’s jewels.   The road is absolutely awesome…an incredible putt through beautiful country.   It’s a trek…the round trip is about 400 miles from my place and back, but it’s worth it.

In planning this trip, my first decision was what to take.   We’re in a cold snap and I knew I’d be headed up above 5,000 feet, so the bikes were out.   It would have been a nice Corvette ride, but I knew I’d be taking a lot of pictures and getting in and out of the Z-06 is tough (and the older I get, the tougher that gets).   That left Il Tangerino (my much-loved Subie), which turned out to be the perfect vehicle for this ride (especially since we’d be hitting some snow, but more on that later).

So it was a short jaunt east on the 210, a run up the 15 through Cajon Pass into the Mojave Desert, north on 395 to Highway 58, and then west on 58 for a few miles.   Sounds quick, but I just talked you through the first 140 miles.   At that point, 58 climbs up into the mountains, the temperature dropped into the 30s, and we kept our eyes peeled for the semi-hidden Caliente exit.

The Caliente exit marks the start of the Bodfish-Caliente Road.   That’s when the real fun begins…in the postage-stamp-sized town of Caliente, bisected by the Tehachapi Loop…

The Tehachapi Loop is just what the name implies…it’s a big loop the railroads use to allow trains to spiral up into the mountains.   We were lucky…we got there just as a long freighter was, well, looping up into the mountains.

And folks, make no mistake, the Bodfish-Caliente Road is the star of this trip.   It is a tight, twisty, awesome, climbing route that runs right through the Walker Basin, with some of the best scenery and photo ops in California.

Don’t believe all of my superlatives?

Well…here we go…

First, let’s take a look at some of the road shots…

That sign isn’t kidding.

I’ve described this road to my friends as a paved goat trail.

In some places where it winds through the mountains that’s what it feels like.   It’s just awesome.

Put this road on the bucket list, folks…it’s one we’ve all got to ride at least once!

The Bodfish-Caliente Road is great, but it’s only part of the story.   What’s on either side is even more fun.   There are some fascinating photo-ops along this road.

Take a look at the folks in this 1927 Buick…

Somebody out there has a great sense of humor.

And hey, take a look at this old fire engine by the trading post…

The Bodfish-Caliente Road is one of my all-time favorite rides.   It would be absolutely awesome on a California Scooter, and when it gets a little warmer, this will be one of our next rides.   There’s no traffic and after every corner there’s a picture postcard scene.    The road cuts through the Walker Basin, an awesome region.   The route is lined by ranches offering even more photo opportunities…

That stop sign above was pretty funny.    Like I said, somebody out there has a sense of humor.

One of the ranches had its own cemetery…

You no doubt noticed the snow in these photos, and when we got into the higher elevations, there was a lot of it.   I don’t think they run snow plows up on the Bodfish-Caliente Road (it’s a very remote area).   The snow just gets packed down by the pickups running over it.    And folks, it was cold up there!

The Subie’s all-wheel drive and its seat heaters were much appreciated on this trip…

After descending through the mountains, the first town at the edge of Lake Isabella is Bodfish.   (Get it?  It’s why they call this the Bodfish-Caliente Road.)

Bodfish is followed by the town of Lake Isabella, and I just had to stop to photograph this sign…

When I stopped for gas I asked a nice lady in the gas station where we could get the best lunch in town, and she recommended the El Rio.

That was sound advice, boys and girls.  Marty and I had a great Mexican lunch there.

As usual, I opted for a chile relleno, and we both had our favorite beer…

After lunch, we took the Subie off road to get down to the lake’s edge.   That’s where I grabbed the shots for the Isabella panorama (the one at the start of this blog).

I took a picture of Marty, too…

Continuing west, we headed out through the Walker Pass.   It cuts across the mountains, and it would bring us back to the 395 (our route home).

There’s a little town called Onyx, and of course, it has a general store…

The Onyx store had a sign on its side saying that it has world-famous sausage.   The next time I go through there I’m going to try it.

I mentioned earlier that we were in cattle country, but I didn’t realize exactly what that meant until we passed through Onyx.

Folks,  here’s a scene you don’t see every day down in LA…

The lighting was terrible from a photography perspective (the snow-capped mountains behind the cows made it tough to get a good exposure), but I grabbed a lot of shots and the one you see here is passable.

This was an awesome experience for a guy like me who grew up in New Jersey.    I felt like I was on the set of Lonesome Dove or Rawhide.    There was even a cowboy sitting tall in the saddle somewhere in that herd.   What a day this had turned out to be!

This is going to sound funny, but I knew one cow was giving me the old stink eye, and it was not a good feeling.   Those things are huge!  I’ve been known to enjoy a good hamburger every now and then, so I suppose a bit of payback would have been fair play.   I was actually having too much fun taking pictures, though, to think about it.

A woman in a large banged-up old Dodge pickup (she was wearing a cowboy hat) drove around my Subie and told me that you just have to inch forward and the cattle will get out of your way.  I let her go first.   Marty commented that she sure had a lot of scratches and dents on her Dodge (no doubt put there by driving through cattle).

It was a fun day, folks, and the stuff you see here is going to be part of a “Destinations” piece I’m doing for Motorcycle Classics magazine (so you’ll want to be sure to pick that issue up).

That’s it for our Bodfish-Caliente/Isabella/Walker Pass ride.   Ride safe, shoot straight, stay warm, and stay tuned.   As always, there’s more good stuff coming your way!