Great Start to Obon Vacation

Brian and I spent Friday night (and Saturday morning) putting saddlebags on the bikes, and, for Brian, doing some maintenance on his VRX before we hit the road on Saturday morning.

We took the route initially planned, and had a great, fun, scenic, mainly traffic-free trip to Usami beach, in Ito city, Izu. The ride there only took about two hours, and that includes the stops for photos and drinks, too. It was really a short ride, only 55 km or so, but it was a great first "real ride" for me.

Anyway, the bikes performed flawlessly, and we were even intimidating enough that a couple of times cars pulled over to let us pass! (Um...actually, we must look faster than we are, though!).

The Izu Skyline is a great toll-road, meant to be enjoyed for the journey rather than just getting to one's destination - no stop-lights, just rolling hills overlooking the valleys below. Here is a photo taken under bright hot sunshine, on the way there, on the Izu Skyline:

We got to the beach at about 10 a.m., and decided to take advantage of the sunshine. We asked our minshuku (small, affordable Japanese inn) if we could park our bikes, though we were early (it wasn't a problem), and then we enjoyed the beach for a few hours. In those few hours, we both managed to get sunburned (I've got photos of me with the 'burn' lines, but nobody, I'm sure, wants to see my naked white butt!).

We had planned to stay overnight, and were lucky to get reservations considering that we called last-minute and it was at the start of the most popular holiday period. The minshuku that we stayed at was called Nakajimaso(see their contact info at the end of this post), and it was really good, and just a 30 second walk from the beach! Though it was on the highway, it was super-quiet. We also had a mountain view room, which means that we did not have an ocean view, but we also did not have a highway view! Luckily, we did get a great sunset view of the mountains, and were served a gorgeous dinner right in our room.

The following day's forecast was for rain, and more rain. The morning was already cloudy, so after a perfect breakfast (grilled fish, soup, egg, pickles, rice....and more!), we decided to get back on the road and head for home. However, as it was not actually raining, neither of us was anxious to get back home so we extended our journey somewhat, riding along the coast before heading up into the mountains to get on the Izu Skyline to ride it from one end to the other. Following that, we decided to give the Ashinoko Skyline a try.

These photos were taken on the Ashinoko Skyline, which I had earlier been intimidated by since it has a lot of VERY VERY fast bikers, usually - but it turns out, it's just as fun and pleasant as the Izu Skyline.

Here's a map of our route home:

View To Usami and Back in a larger map

Nakajimaso's phone number: ????????????
Nakajimaso's website: http://www11.plala.or.jp/nakajimasou/