Travelogue Day 3

After the training was over the last day, I packed up the mountain of equipment that was my hiking backpack on the back of the motorcycle ( I don't know if I got a photo of how that looked or not ).
Headed off down the 210 again and up to Etiwanda Preserve.  Etiwanda is a natural preserve area that seeks to maintain the original beauty and splendor of bland rock and dead sagebrush. For being a nature preserve there was an awful lot of hiker trash, dog poop, and tissues. Nestled at the foothills of, well, the Foothill Mountains, this barren landscape is still better than open space parks in Arizona. Not by much though.
The vista from the trailhead is surprisingly nice, if you like looking at the smog of Rancho Cucamunga and it's surrounding cities. A few hundred feet above the valley, you have a great view, if you really want it. The trail continues up at this same incline which made me realize just how out of shape I really am. My destination was less than a two mile hike, but it was uphill both ways. There was a 700 foot elevation gain in that to get to the falls, which after two years of drought, I wasn't expecting much more than a trickle. I trudged for the first mile and could see some trees in the valleys ahead of me. This was no surprise as I had looked it up on Google maps beforehand, but it was a relief to see that they were in fact green and not brown rust dead colored.
As I got closer, I could hear the sound of water and realized that it was actually flowing. This moonscape mountain, and it's desert skirt surrounding it, was still flowing in this drought. And it was impressive. Not the amount of water although it was a lot more than I would have expected, but it was like an oasis in the desert. Oak, shady little brooks converging into a waterfall, the surroundings were impressive.
I like to think of myself as quite the outdoorsman, and was looking forward to not only taking this trip on the motorcycle but also testing out some new camping equipment, which I got to do and take some pictures of it.
Overall the trip was nice and do-able when I think of riding to Sturgis. Lots of dodging cars here vs dodging other cyclists. 1400 miles vs 100. Hopefully a better view of mountains in South Dakota. No training class at the end of the trip!