CA-74 East of Hemet

I made yet another trip to Lake Elsinore—ready to fill out the application for an apartment. I ran into a couple of things I didn't like so I walked.

With nothing else to do I continued across CA-74 to the Palm Desert/Palm Springs area then home via I-10, CA-60 and CA-91. I always enjoyed the ride to the desert east of Hemet on my motorcycle, and in the car it wasn't too bad, even though like other places the road has been destroyed by progress.

This shot is not long after leaving Hemet and looking back to the west or north-west. This section of the 74 was always a blast to ride. A narrow road with on-coming traffic and lot of nice curves meant you had to stay alert. I think it was best enjoyed in the 70's when a lot high performance motorcycles were available, but the frames, brakes, tires, etc., were mature designs that weren't quite up to the new horsepower. The Norton was always fun to ride, but it had one problem when pushing on the 74. The foot pegs were hard mounted and the first thing to ground. It could get pretty hairy when overcooking a curve in traffic and be dragging a hard peg with oncoming traffic. (That's what I've heard — I'd never do something like that.)

This is at a turn-out as the road starts descending to the desert: it's looking north-east or east.

Continuing on down, I'm at 3,010 feet and I think the top was 4,900 or so. It's going to get real hot real soon.

Unfortunately, the big overlook, where you get a good look down to the desert, was closed for re-construction, so I pressed on.

I'll continue the story in part II.

Tom