Some pictures and ride reports from our 7th Annual SoCal Netscum camping trip along the South Fork of the Kern River in the Kennedy Meadows/Kernville area of Southern California...

Fred arrives at Tom's place from Orange County for the ride North	Camp Netscum 2008	A helicopter (with a surprisingly large crew onboard) arrives to quickly pick up?
The mystery copter leaves...	Got wood?	Fred relaxing with a cold one at the General Store
Fred greets Beate who arrived late Thursday evening from San Diego...	...bearing gifts!	Friday AM at Camp Netscum
The bikes lined up at the General Store	Greg, Beate, and Fred enjoying lunch	Tom (photo by Greg)
Fred (photo by Greg)	Greg and his BMW ready to setup camp	Greg breaking the law at the gate to Sherman Pass
Beate, Greg, and Fred at the end of the road	Cruising down the road from Blackrock Station (photo by Greg)	Greg, Beate, and Fred telling lies around the campfire
Fred raises a toast	Saturday AM at Camp Netscum	Rich arrives...
...on his KTM from Long Beach	Full house at Camp Netscum	More lies
The gang at Grump Bears for dinner...	...and gathered around the campfire afterwards	Now that's a campfire!

Fred's ride report...

On the plus side
Weather was perfect
Most relaxing camping I've ever done
Great company
Other than a couple of glitches I noticed coming home, the bike ran perfect.  The glitches were with the tach, and had no noticeable difference on how the bike ran. 

I still have that laid back groggy well rested feeling.
Learned the definition of a few new terms
Tom learned how to make a campfire baked potato

On the negative side
Paid for two air mattresses, but only slept on one
Rear brake went away on me after the mishap on the 5 in LA (where there is a brand new air mattress somewhere), so no rear brake for the rest of the trip.

Grumpy Bears did not have anything other than hamburgers, dogs, etc….NO STEAKS
Most importantly…..The stay was way too short

I think we found out just how important it is that we don't underestimate our ability to kill half gallons of JD. 
Also, when you break an empty bottle of JD in the fire a couple of things happen.
1.  A beautiful blue flame shoots skyward
2.  The neighbors turn off their lights and go inside their trailer and tent.  #8^)

Lessons learned:
If the stay is longer than ours was, bring more JD
Avoid Asian females driving Audi TTs in LA
Warn your fellow campers before they follow you using the bathroom
Grab the good local brew at the store before it's all drank by the hikers
Get in line at happy hour before all the good stuff is eaten by the hikers
Try to breathe through your mouth when passing a dirty looking hiker
Hikers can eat more than Mark McDougal.
Get a license and bring fishing gear.

Had a great time….look forward to doing it again.

Greg's ride report...

Left the house a little before 8:00 [on Friday] because I wanted to stop by the H-D shop to make arrangements to pick the bike up on Sunday afternoon. Got that taken care of and headed for Hwy 178 up through the Kern River Canyon. It was GREAT!!!! I had a pretty stiff tail wind which made it nice and quiet. Stopped for a snack in Lake Isabella then gas in Pearsonville and up 9 mile canyon.

 I took a wrong turn (wrong store) and went up a dirt road that scared the crap outta me. It had about 3 to 4" of sand. I figured that it couldn't be the spot cuz the river was way too far away. Got back to the pavement and found the correct road and spotted a couple Harley's at the store, turned around and found this

 A few beers and a burger later we headed to camp so I could get set up. Then we took a short ride up to the gate that prevented us from going to Sherman Pass.

 We went back to the store to catch Happy Hour. A few more beers and the munchies that were put out. Good spread but we were probably 10 minutes too late to get a sampling of all the spread. The hikers had ravenous appetites.

 Saturday morning produced this which was what was left of the SECOND bottle of Jack

 (part of the crappy pictures)

 Saturday was a lazy day and back to the store for more beer. I saw Rich go by but at a distance. We all figured that he would have to turn around if it WAS him but he decided to play in the sand. Back to Camp and there he was taking a nap, which was my idea but with new folks in camp it didn't happen.

 Off to Grumpy Bears for a pretty crappy burger (compared to what we were eating) but they do serve after 4:00PM which the store doesn't. Back to camp and a fire that was built from wood we had collected earlier in the day thanks to Beate having a car!

 Sunday it was up and out. I had a great ride out. I actually caught Beate at the bottom of 9 mile canyon. She had about a 10 minute head start. Uneventful ride home except for the remains of the fire that apparently burned in the Kern River Canyon over the weekend.

 I'll be sure to make this again. I had a great and relaxing time (after a few reminders to relax :-)

And finally Beate's ride report...

I think there were five of the most appreciated showers taken in SoCal on Sunday!

I had a great time and in the end did not regret taking the car;  What with being able to pack a BIG cooler with wine and steak, bringing corn and potatoes, aluminum foil etc. etc. plus being able to haul wood for the Saturday blaze it was not in vain.  Man, that camp fire on Saturday lit up the whole campground like a forest fire!

We learned some new concepts this year.  For example one of the locals at the general store- a staunchly unredeemed politically incorrect fellow (with a female Dachshund named 'George') taught us that the correct name for a crow is: "[N-word] Chicken"....:>
We learned from the ever hungry hikers that squeamish concepts of picking up dropped edibles by others ought to be disregarded:  One related his bliss at finding a "pristine red Skittle" in the road....:>
Rich taught us the meaning of the expression: "turteling" for better explanations ask Tom, Greg and Fred...
For the rest, I fully agree with Greg: the weather was great, the company was wonderful, lets do it again and perhaps longer.

Couldn't have said it better myself!