Today was to take us to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, some of the best riding roads in the world. You could spend 6 months here and not get bored, but we had only a few days, so we had to choose the best. I was really looking forward to this, now that the bikes’ ride height had been adjusted to my liking.
No entry for motorcycles, not even quiet ones.
Early breakfast (tiny breakfast bar at the hotel – better to eat in your room), packed and ready to go. Glenn likes his golf, and the idea was to ride through the Monterey Peninsula (17 Mile Drive) and look at famous courses like Pebble Beach in particular. We followed The Waif through Carmel until we came to a security gate and a sign saying ‘No Motorcycles’. Surely that meant loud bikes, not us civilized Aussies on tour. We were politely told NO motorcycles included us.
Well, there’s more than one way in, so plan B was activated. No luck at the next security gate either – the message was consistent – polite, but consistent. We, as suspected practitioners of unknown and undefined evil vices, were not welcome.
Roadworks - you on the motorcycle go to the head of the queue
Oh well, on we went up Highway 1, still hugging the coast, still in mist, the same as yesterday. Came across a few roadworks, but just as in Aussie, we slowly cruised to the front of the queue and no one minded. After all, we didn’t hold anyone up.
Now we started riding through pumpkin fields, and with Halloween a few weeks away there were Halloween pumpkins everywhere.
Halloween Pumpkins everywhere
Our intention was to keep to the coast as far as we could, then head east skirting San Francisco. Tempting as it was to cross the Golden Gate bridge, we passed this opportunity up this time round.
More Halloween Pumpkins
At Half Moon Bay we headed easy on Route 92 and across to the San Mateo Bridge, the 25th longest bridge in the world. 2 miles of highrise section and 5 miles of low-level bridge, making a total of 7 miles across San Francisco Bay. In hindsight, we did have enough time to see the Golden Gate Bridge, but we weren’t to know it then.
San Mateo Bridge
After crossing San Mateo Bridge we were on the SF highway system, and again The Waif in the Garmin Zumo came into her own. At one stage we were faced with the highway splitting into 3 lanes each going 2 different ways, all in the middle of a construction zone. Because it was a deviation/construction zone the GPS was slightly out, so at a time like that you just keep in your lane – in this case heading left. Soon it became evident that heading right was the correct option, but The Waif calmly directed us around a few turns and it wasn’t long and we were back on track (or rather, back on multi-lane highway with bumper-to-bumper traffic).
Heading East from SF we were amazed at the number of wind turbines all over the place. In Australia we can’t get these things built because they are apparently hazardous to our birds and people complain about the noise – here they were everywhere. Maybe we’ve just got dumber birds and more sensitive ears. They’re not pretty, but obviously effective as they were everywhere.
106 Degrees
Once away from the coast the temperature soared, and soon we were in freeway traffic at 106 degrees, heading along 580. From SF to Sonora we were pretty much in light urban areas – very interesting seeing the towns we passed through – well passed, rather than through, until we were off the real highways around Manteca and on to Yosemite Avenue – now that’s a nice sounding name.
With the time we were making we would be in Sonora with time to find accommodation and still explore the town. All was good.
