The same is true for returning home. You can’t come back home, because it will have changed, just like the flowing waters of a river change with every moment. Born and raised in California, I have a lot I dislike about the general direction the people and government want to take the state, but I’ll forever be in love with the land itself. It is home to world famous cities, deserts, mountain ranges, grasslands, giant redwood forests, and hundreds of miles of Pacific coastline. It has the whack-job avant garde art crowds while having more rodeos per year than Texas. And yet…
Countless years of mismanagement mean utterly skyrocketing costs, which hit harder when you don’t live there full time (which I haven’t since 2021). It was bad enough watching gasoline jump about $1.00/gallon in southern Arizona (more than 25%), but this trip to California was my first time spending more than $6.00/gallon for gas, unless we count race gas. I’m here for vacation though, and you gotta do what you gotta do.
I am back in the San Francisco Bay to see my doctor for some possible heart or lung issues. Fortunately I still have one friend who hasn’t fled the high prices of the Bay, and is even thriving down in San Jose. So not only do I have a free place to crash while I see the doctor, but it’s like a Fortress of Solitude. The backyard is literally a butterfly sanctuary, with the smell of honeysuckle riding on the light breeze. It’s hard to believe you’re in a giant metropolis sitting in his backyard.
My friend is a military veteran, motorcyclist, and an accomplished writer, so we have a lot to talk about anytime we meet up. He’s also got a database of the best taco spots, so it can be hard to leave whenever I visit, to tell the truth. The dude knows how to live.
The Way Out/ Road Rant
But of course to get here was basically a 900-mile commute. I was able to break it up into two days by staying with another friend who had moved out near the Joshua Tree/29 Palms area. A fellow motorcycle traveler and also an accomplished chef, it was yet another place that is hard to leave. It’s times like this that I have no problem remembering how blessed I am to know decent, thoughtful, passionate people, who choose to call me friend.
It’s a mixed bag that my friends are scattered all over the country. It makes travel a chance to feel like a returning hero, constantly arriving at places where someone is excited to see me, hear my latest story, and share their updates. On the other hand I also have no home; my community is spread out from New York to Colorado, Canada to Costa Rica.
The trip out to California was high speed droning, which is a specialty of heavy touring bikes like my Indian Chieftain, but the lack of a true overdrive gear also means the fuel economy utterly tanks above 65mph. Most of the trip was done at 70-78mph, dropping the MPG as low as 26, and at best 33. I find that abysmal; an econobox car can better that and doesn’t need tires every 12,000-15,000 miles, has climate control, and I can sleep in it if I’m feeling tired.
Just the same, I made it to J-Tree, ate like a death row inmate having a last meal, sampled some great whiskey, and slept like the dead. On day two my buddy rode with me for the first leg, taking Hwy 247 up to Barstow, where I picked up Hwy 58 to cross the Tehachapi mountains. The climb and headwind caused my worst fuel economy of the trip, and the trip down the western slope didn’t improve things much.
After that came my nemesis: Interstate 5. The I-5 is an extremely important corridor for the west coast, connecting Mexico and Canada in the straightest line possible, via San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. However, California has this retarded idea that trucks shouldn’t go faster than 55-mph, while using the same roads as passenger cars that have a speed limit of 70-mph.
This leaves long lines of trucks in the right lane, and long lines of cars that stay in the left lane to avoid the trucks. To move through traffic, you are then forced to ride at high speed in the right lane, towards the ass-end of a slow truck, then kamikaze your way into the left lane and hope the trucker isn’t about to change lanes to pass the truck in front of him.
It’s total chaos, it’s easily preventable, and California is like all other states, meaning it has giant signs saying “Slower Traffic Keep Right” that are ignored by the general public. And of course, being Americans, the average driver’s sense of entitlement means they think you’re the a-hole for cutting them off while they cruise in the left lane. It’s a recipe for conflict, and is created in the name of safety. It’s a perfect example of how stupid the management of the state really is.
Not Many Alternatives
As you can guess, I hate I-5 with a passion. I had to use it as a trucker, I had to use it as a vacationing traveler, and I had to use it over and over when I lived in the Bay and had to return to SoCal for visits or racing events. Even though it takes longer, I will often use Hwy 101 instead, but there’s only so much daylight, so I-5 was mandatory this trip.
Next up in my journey will be a return to SoCal though. I’m returning to Arizona, but I need to swing back home to get a copy of my birth certificate. Can I ignore the I-5 and take an alternate? Tune in next week: same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. In seriousness, even if I take Hwy 101, I’ll have to cut across and use I-5 for the end of the journey; there is simply no avoiding it without a massive detour into heavy traffic and endless construction zones.
But what about the damn tacos?!
Exactly. This is the important part. Las Cazuelas was stop one, and I went with the Chile Colorado. Best I remember EVER having, though I also can’t remember the last time I ordered this particular dish. Still, they nailed that rich flavor without making things too sweet, and the texture of the slow-cooked meat was fantastic. While the tortillas were good they weren’t the kind of house-made stuff you can find in the borderlands, but they let me sop up every last bit of sauce.
The next day was a quick trip on the bikes over to Spirit Motorcycles, the local Indian dealer. It’s a great place and the owner Martin is super-friendly, despite clearly being busy with daily operations. While it isn’t a mega-mall style dealer, they have a very active service department and a lot of online sales, meaning employees are busier than the salesroom floor would make you guess.
After that it was time for birria tacos. The spot was a food truck, but like many successful pop-ups it looked a bit more like a small festival. Outdoor seating had tents over them, there were games like cornhole set up, and other vendors were selling deserts, elote, and the like.
The tacos were other-world level. Admittedly, I’ve never had bad birria. Most Mexican staples are some sort of slow cooked meat, and it’s hard to get them wrong; you can boil a shoe with the right spices and it’s going to taste decent if you just keep slow cooking it. However, to hit the sweet spot with a birria taco, you need to also get the tortilla right, in both flavor and texture.
The consomé is also important. When it’s good it is a dipping sauce, but when it is excellente it can be sipped like bone broth. The salsa was also a great match, being mid-level with the heat but balanced enough to bring out flavors in the birria instead of overpowering. I also got a “Baja birria” taco to see what it was about, and the same salsa worked perfectly with it (shrimp and cheese inside a tortilla, then placed inside a birria-style tortilla).
If you are in the San Jose area, look up Con Sabor a México on West San Carlos St.
Upshot in the City
The one thing I forgot about big-city life was the overwhelming number of options you have for anything. In small towns you still have options, but it generally boils down to “this or that:” one place or the other. San Jose is overrun with taco spots. Even if you narrow it down to food trucks vs. restaurants you have more than ten in a five-mile radius. That doesn’t include rotating food trucks that move between other venues. This was the case when we went to Hapa’s Brewery.
First off, they have two locations in town, and are among several microbreweries in town. They also share their old warehouse station with a meadery, specializing in some great summertime fruit flavored meads and ciders. There was also a pinball arcade, DJ, and someone cooking up smashburgers. We opted for the food truck because, well…tacos.
It was Colombian fusion cuisine, and that means their tacos are non-traditional. But when you mesh Colombian, Mexican, and American flavors, what you get is a sort of gourmet version of a fast food taco. Hard shell, ground beef, but with a slightly different flavor profile. TexMex ground beef it seasoned much like chili con carne, using cumin and cayenne chili peppers for heat.
Colombia uses cumin as well, but more as the base of the flavor instead of an addition. And for kick they rely on scallions or onion powder instead of cayenne. Needless to say, they were fantastic, and went great with the Kolsch style beer I was sampling. California is famous for fusion so it shouldn’t be surprising I was trying a German style beer with TexMex-derived tacos made using Colombian flavors.
California does this with everything. Sushi took on so many American flavors that now back in Japan some places are adding avocado and cream cheese to make American-style rolls for tourists and locals who want to try something a little weird. Korean barbecue tacos, French Mac n’ Cheese with BBQ pork butt, shawarma in Indian fry bread (American-Indians, not Far East Indian)…everything is fair game for experimentation.
City-to-City
As I said, the next leg it to head south to Los Angeles. I should be in some areas that are good for Asian fusion, so I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for that. I’m only stopping in for a day though. I need to grab something from my home county of Orange, just south of LA. But that should give me a shot at some Mongolian barbecue, or Korean hot pot, or maybe some Chicken Katzu, Hawaiian style.
We’ll see if I have time to take photos, but I haven’t officially started my trip, mind you. This is just a doctor’s appointment: it looks like a trip because I was 900-miles away from my doctor. In May I’ll be heading to Austin to do some volunteer work for Motorcycle Missions, so my summer trip will start from there, likely at the beginning of June. Destination: Canada.
Newfoundland specifically, but all the Eastern Provinces need to be explored. There is a shocking amount of coastline in Nova Scotia because of its near-island shape, and New Brunswick is overrun with covered bridges, rocky coastline, and twisting backroads. Prince Edward Island is also on the list, and I hope to try some of their jams and other berry deserts.
Stay tuned, and also remember most of my actual stories are going to be moving to Ride>Eat>Repeat (RER), my new travel blog. While it focuses on food, it is really about human culture and how food is a part of our individual and collective identity. That means travel is naturally a part of that project, as I observe the shifting flavors of different regions I travel through.
There’s no point in overlapping those stories with a personal blog here, so I recommend you sign up for that mailing list for updates. I’ll still make posts here, but the RER blog will be more focused on travel, while this blog will stay more general purpose, talking about my work as a writer and personal observations. Johnny Killmore is “here is what I’m doing, collaborate with me” place, while RER is an actual voice, investigating the human experience through food and our relationship with our environment.
Johnny Killmore 