First rainy day

 

Day 14     June 12     

Chester, CA To Redding, CA

Ride Mileage :  172            Weather condition: Light and heavy rain, cold

Total Mileage :  2923

Well it has to happen at some point! I have been lucky so far not to get a single drop of rain since I left Houston on May 26. 

Rain started during the night at the campground and was very light when we woke up around 5:30am so we rushed to pack everything and hit the road by 7am.

The plan was to ride around the Lassen Volcanic National park and stop at Lakehead for the night. As you can tell on the pictures, we didn’t see much of the park. It was very foggy, cold and wet.

At the top of the road. Elevation 8500 ft

Park entrance 

After 5 hours riding in the rain we decided to shorten a bit the day ride and take a motel in Redding. 

Even though it was not the best day for a motorcycle trip, there are some positive learning of today’s weather, first the hard cases are still waterproof, second the tent is also waterproof (never had a night rain so I wasn’t sure) and third the riding gears are reasonably waterproof (100% for the pant, small leak near the shoulder in the vest).

The helmet is not great in the rain, becoming foggy quickly and opening the visor is not ideal…need some investigation. 

There was some smoke coming from the radiator fan. Not sure if it was due to the rain water dripping on some hot engine part or something else, the smell was closer to plastic burning so definitely  something to keep an eye on.