travellingbennetts

Day 88. Crescent City, just inside the Californian border on the coast. Dennys luncheon. We had started up a conversation with our server. Of course we knew we must be coming into the land of large trees, having just ridden down the Redwood Highway from Oregon. She asked if we’d seen the large trees, not yet was our response. She said she was a local, and in her opinion the Jedediah Smith State Park just out of town was well worth a visit. Just take the Elk Valley Road. Usually by lunch we are running out of excitement about deviating from the day’s plan, but we only had about an hour and a half to go so had to do something to slow down time. Back on and heading down the highway, I saw the turn-off. Shall we do this? Yeah, why not. Up the road, a sign appeared recommending vehicles with trailers not to go any further. Always a good sign for the motorcyclist. Narrow, winding, and suddenly dirt. All alone. But then surrounded by redwoods.

Of course, we have seen big trees before. We’ve seen the giant red gum of Orroroo in South Australia, 11 m circumference around the base. We’ve seen the big stringybark at Dip Falls in Tasmania, +60 m tall and 16 m around the base. And of course, the swamp gum or mountain ash trees also in Tasmania, the world’s biggest flowering plants. But they are usually one huge tree in a forest of normal trees. The journey through the redwoods is amazing because they are all bloody huge.

We motored slowly along winding through these huge things, dodging the occasional SUV which required some forethought because the track was very narrow and clearly some thought we should be the ones to back up the hill and let them through. After one of the most incredible little rides ever we popped back out on the road we’d come in on toward Crescent City, and repeated it, waving wildly when we went past the Dennys. We stopped just out of town to touch the waters because the Pacific always smells like home, i.e. a dead seagull.

Down the Redwood Highway to the Redwood National Park visitor’s centre to pick up the mandatory fridge magnet and stickers, where the very helpful ranger told us about the Newton B Drury Parkway through the redwood forests and what a cracking ride it is. Which way were we heading? South, we said. Oh, that’s a shame he said, we’re currently at the southern end of it. Gosh darn we said. Neither of us could be bothered given the time and the fact we’d done one of the better rides ever through giant trees, and after all there would be the famous Avenue of the Giants tomorrow. Into Eureka, first item on the Eureka agenda was a long walk up to the Target to get Target stuff. It was a Saturday, so things were a bit quiet and there were a few loose types strolling about. For dinner we went up to a café/brewery, again very quiet on the streets and Eureka was in danger of getting a “quiet, too quiet” ranking. Until we went inside the café/brewery, which was absolutely packed. Where on earth had all these people come from? Had they been there all day? Never mind, dinner and a walk back through the even quieter streets and we were done.

Some navigation research had been taken for this part of the trip because the Redwood Highway 101 was obviously a highway, and although not an interstate we could do better by getting closer to the coast. So on Day 89 we turned off the 101 through Ferndale and onto the Mattole Rd which goes to the one-word Capetown, named to avoid any GPS confusion with Cape Town.

We didn’t find out until later that this road is considered by some to be one of the best in the USA. It isn’t well maintained, but if it was it would be crawling with sports bikes and Ferraris. Through tunnels in the forests going up over the range to the coast, there wasn’t 100m of straight road, it was relentless corners. Near the coast at this time of year, the fog and mist just add to the scene, it was amazing. So amazing and winding that Cindy couldn’t take her hand off the bars for long enough to take photos. As we went through Capetown, population apparently zero-ish, we got into pastural land with the risk of cows.

No cows luckily, but not much risk of actually seeing anything else either, but that just added to the vibe. We dropped off the coastal range and onto the Black Beach at the Point of Cows, so named by Quincy Flyblow because while camped there in 1842 he became hungry and suddenly realised the point of cows. While we ride alongside the beach, another feature about the west coast in summer is worth mentioning. A kilometre inland, the temperature during the day can be in the +30°C range, but right next to the coast it is in the bloody freezing range, with the cold and the fog in summer due to the California Current flowing down from Alaska.

A break at Black Beach, still having seen precisely one farmer for the day, and back inland into slightly more warmth at Petrolia. Miraculously there was a little shop, and it was open, so we could have a decent rest and drink in a ride that had already taken a lot longer than expected. The ride from there on up into the ranges was more adventurous, and dirt sections appeared. We saw two adventure riders in the even more relentlessly winding and hilly sections, nothing too technical, but it just went on and on.

Eventually with the-fuel-light-is-on anxiety starting to rear its sweaty head, we re-appeared on the Redwood Highway 101 at Garberville. Which is a fair way south of the Avenue of the Giants. Missed that as well, goshdarnit. A nice Garberville lunch in a café where our booth was reserved for the mayor, we first confirmed he didn’t come in on Sundays so it was unlikely we would have to move. Then down the 101 to Leggett, where we could finally meet one of the big attractions, the drive-thru redwood. It was $10 per bike but had to be done. The problem was a big queue of cars and people, so getting a good photo of the bikes in the tree was difficult without also capturing some old duck who insisted on standing permanently in the wrong place with her iPhone at the present arms position.

This was a long day, we left the 101 and headed down the 1 which did some lovely road through to the coast, where the temperature dropped dramatically once again. Along spectacular coastline to Fort Bragg, named after the US Army General Braxton Bragg, who fought for the Confederacy and led the Army of Tennessee. A deeply unpopular commander with both seniors and subordinates, he was a stickler for regulations and incredibly quarrelsome. Apparently as a frontier company commander he submitted a requisition for supplies to the quartermaster, a position he was also filling. As quartermaster he refused the requisition, and had himself resubmit it, only to refuse it again. The story probably wasn’t true but was very believable to those who knew him. Anyway after that off-track story we pushed onto Point Arena, a very nice little town. Around 8 hours in the saddle and probably our longest and one of our best ever days, but nowhere near the longest miles.

A Japanese restaurant was right next to the motel, that would do. This wasn’t a Japanese restaurant with sushi dishes going around on a train track, it was very high end. We were extremely lucky to get a seat at the bar. It was just fantastic with superb food and sake, at least until we got the bill, then it was for god’s sake. Never mind, we deserved a reward for something undefined or not achieved. Day 90 was down the coast before heading inland into the maw of the Bay Area as people from around San Francisco like to call it. The scenery remained gorgeous, and finally the fog started to clear a bit.

Roadworks was the nemesis; the coast was full of them. Every few miles a traffic light would appear. Sometimes we got there at the right time, sometimes not. But it did give us a chance to take a few photos and enjoy the cool, almost our first sustained pleasant riding temperatures since the beginning.

Bodega Bay was lunch, appropriately fish & chips, while watching a sea lion cruise around the piers. Staying on 1 for as long as possible, we made it to Point Reyes Station, then east through the valleys via San Geronimo on an incredibly winding road, the Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. Some assumption here that an Englishman had a road named after him in the USA because he used to make the lives of the Spanish miserable from southern Chile to up past the Bay Area, and there wasn’t a lot of love lost between the US and the Spaniards back in the day.

We popped out onto 101 again and into the destination, Corte Madera, just north of the bridge. I don’t need to tell you which bridge we’re talking about when we are swanning around San Francisco. Anyway, the point of Day 90 was to meet up with Cindy’s sister Kim and our brother-in-law Gino who were flying in to start the family road trip, which was successfully achieved in the hotel.

Dinner, drinks, hilarity, the usual catch-up after a lot of months away from home. Us, not them, they still had jetlag. But we had a full program so needed to get on with it. On Day 91 all went to see the bridge except one who had a work meeting, never mind they’d get to see a photo. The afternoon was out to Napa, because while we had spare time seeing a few wineries seemed like a good idea. We didn’t visit any wineries because just rocking up is quite expensive, but we did have a nice Greek lunch. As luck would have it, the gents at the next table were local winery executives, and they ordered a bottle of their own wine. Then didn’t drink much, so the waiter who is now our sole beneficiary gave us their bottle. Good times. Back to the hotel we did a rare thing and had a BBQ. More good times.

Day 92, we headed east having once again run out of west. Kim and Gino had a car with heaps of room for us all, so there was no need for anyone to ride, except we had two motorcycles so two people had to ride. Me and Gino. Out over an amazing multi-story bridge to the east side, we rode past the Hotel California which was a highlight. Then the realisation of the problems travelling in a car and motorcycle convoy. We’d decided in advance on Stockton for lunch. But the motorcycle GPS and the car Google Maps were not in sync, so Gino and I ended up in somewhere that was not Stockton at the Pollo Loco (Crazy Chicken) for lunch. Never mind, we managed to re-connect at Chinese Camp, an old gold mining town.

Yes it was still very warm. Questions were asked about whether that was the reason Gino was required to ride one of the two motorcycles, but the rapid cooling as we rode into Yosemite (we insist it is pronounced like Vegemite) scotched such a ridiculous notion. A storm and bucketing rain made it very comfortable besides being wet and in fear of life. But we survived and experienced the amazing entrance to one of the world’s most famous national parks.

Ensconced and dined, we could enjoy. There were a lot of people as the end of August is prime time, although schools had gone back so there were a lot of foreign visitors. Foreign visitors always cause trouble with their crowding and demanding food and drinks, but we tolerated Kim and Gino due to their contribution to the economy. Day 93 started with a Yosemite orientation tour, so we all loaded onto a flat-bed trailer and off we went. We learned about pine tree species in the floor of the valley, there is the odd Sequoia tree, but they weren’t very big. It is mainly Ponderosa Pine and Incense Cedar. Our guide ensured we were fully trained in recognising the important tree species because our very survival may depend on it if all we had to eat was trees. The scenery is somewhat abrupt in Yosemite, granite just rises vertically everywhere, so the stops to admire it were frequent.

Hopes of seeing people free climbing El Capitan or Half Dome were put to rest by our guide, the season starts in October as it is way too hot out on the rockface before then. The tour done, we lunched then decided bike rental was the go because the tours weren’t terribly hopeful.

Bike rental always makes one feel part of the outdoorsy crowd. Dressed in neat clothing and shoes worthy of a high-end Japanese restaurant, you pass young and fit people in active wear with a knowing smile; you’ve destroyed their self-image and they’ll be in Walmart tomorrow looking for tracky dacks.

Bicycling around and managing to destroy much younger esteem, we hit the Ansel Adams gallery which is just spectacular. Back to the bike hire place and the day was declared done. Day 94 was a late start, we had one day left in the park and had already covered a lot of it. We all piled into the car and headed up the winding Glacier Point Road. This would have been cool on the bike but that limits the requirement to back seat drive up the hill and tell the driving family member that they are doing okay but not quite as it should be done.

To say the views from Glacier Point are spectacular is a gross understatement. Solid granite just grows from the ground into sheer faced blocks, making it one of the world’s great climbing Meccas. Poking our head over the edge of the lookout we could look directly down on the carpark where the motorcycles rested comfortably. Back down the hill, regularly telling the driver that they should be watching the road because it is winding and has no shoulders, we dinnered at the famous historic Ahwahnee Hotel. This also allowed for more driver advice because there was a big sign coming into the hotel saying valet parking only. Gino was having none of that, he could park the car himself, for free. So we ended up back out on the Ahwahnee Drive, did a ewe-ee, then did it again. Finally convinced by back seaters that the choice seemed to narrow down to valet and dinner, or no dinner, Gino allowed the valet to park the car, and we got some dinner.

The plan for the new Day 95 was south into the Sequoia National Park. Back up the Wawona Road, this is still more sensational riding through the granite country of the Sierra Nevada range. Past Fish Camp, so named in 1906 because fish used to camp there on their way up Big Creek to the annual Scaled Fish Orthopaedic Surgeons convention, and around Bass Lake, named after Herman Bass who was the first scaled fish to graduate from UCLA. Then the challenge in the rising heat – do we avoid Fresno entirely, or hit the big roads through it in the hope that there are no lights or stops or road works? The former was decided upon by those in the fully climate-controlled car, and we stayed as far east as we could through the endless orange orchards.

Finally heading east up into the Sierras, but not much out of the hot foothills, we made it to Springville, our home for two nights. Into the AirBnB, sweating was the main activity until the air conditioner got on top of the situation. The Tule River was discovered down the hill, and some wend their way down past people’s houses into it with beverages purchased at the local supermarket.

The reason for selecting Springville was that it was advertised as 10 minutes away from the Sequoia National Park. Which is literally true, but a bit like saying “Come and stay in Timbuktu! Only 10 minutes away from the Sahara!” It turned out that Springville was 10 minutes away from the border of the Sequoia NP, but that bit of the park is actually way too low to grow sequoia trees. So Day 96 was in the car back the way we’d come through the endless orange and “What on earth are those?” orchards for 60 miles to get into the actual Sequoia NP, the part where there are actual sequoia trees. Unfortunately, Day 96 was a Sunday on Memorial Day weekend, so getting in was very slow with a queue at the park entrance, then a traffic snarl that went for a long way. Eventually, we arrived at the source of the snarl, Tunnel Rock. Nothing to do with bloody sequoia trees, people would just stop the car on the road and wait for someone else to give up a park, completely blocking the road. All sworn out, we made it to a car park where Gino miraculously snagged one, a bit like winning the Powerball jackpot under the circumstances. There was a huge and slow-moving queue for the loos at the carpark, which seemed odd given there were stacks of the world’s biggest diameter trees to go behind, so we headed up the hill on a walking track to check them out.

Off we went up the hill toward the famous General Sherman tree, the largest single living thing on earth. The scale is just incredible, we felt like tiny little things amongst all these monsters. The really huge trees are named after presidents and famous generals and other notables, but like the redwoods it is just surreal because so many of the trees are so big. Past the Lincoln tree, the walk suddenly became even more interesting. A bloke passing us and heading the other way said we needed to be careful because there was a bear just up ahead. It wasn’t being aggressive but was quite close to the path. A bear? An actual bear? Could this be our first ever? No-one cared about trees at this point, and in fact we resented them because they completely blocked our view of bears. Why did the National Parks not cut the bloody things down? Then the excitement started building to a crescendo, another chap with a very foreign accent, maybe from eastern Europe or Boston, said to watch out for the bear 200 ft ahead. 200 ft, and there were two huge trees a mere 100 ft away. The excitement level was lifted even higher by the fact the chap had ignored Cindy or vice versa and she was walking between the trees, so 100 ft from the bear. I tried to make her aware of bear. But I didn’t want to frighten it off before I got there so was shouting “Cindy!” at about 40 dBA, equivalent to a soft whisper shout. That didn’t work, so I picked up a pinecone, not one of the enormous sequoia ones but a smaller and less lethal species and threw it. She was 100 ft ahead, and I had done no research on the age v throwing distance for large and highly wind resistant objects. If I had, I would have learned that getting it the 50 ft I achieved was very praiseworthy. Cindy didn’t notice though. Goddamit, either she’d frighten the bear away before I got there or else would be attacked by the bear and I’d feel bad I hadn’t warned her. Either way, I got the photos App ready.

There was no bear. The board of inquiry later concluded that the foreign accent chap had his units confused, and 200 ft meant something that was not 200 ft. Probably not from Boston then. The crescendo was never reached, but the General Sherman tree was. A huge crowd was clustered in front at the photo spot, and a fight seemed to be breaking out, so we went to a different place to try to get a photo showing just how big it is.

Off for lunch at the visitor’s centre on a crowded bus, we ended up back at the General Sherman where the same fight seemed to still be on the verge of breaking out, and walked back down to the car where a crowd had gathered hoping to see the people who had snagged such an amazing park. A slow trip back through the endless orange and “Are those almonds? Maybe pecans?” orchards to Springville. Another unseemly swim in the river, then saying hello to the neighbours as we trespassed back through their property while surreptitiously scraping the Tule River sand off our feet on their lawn. Then Day 97 brought new challenges – navigation. We wanted to go east to avoid any of the cities, but the route through to Johnsondale seemed uncertain via any of the navigation platforms. But we’ve never shied away from a challenge, unless it is slightly challenging. With the bro-in-law Gino established on Cindy’s bike, there was little choice but to go for it.

First concern was arriving at Coffee Camp, where there was no coffee. What? But there was the back-up of Upper Coffee Camp. Again, no coffee. Double what? Then there was one of those “Road Closed at Upper Kumbuckta West Avenue” signs. Where on earth is Upper Kumbuckta West Avenue? Is that one of those side roads that has no bearing on the through traveller or the main road? Let’s involve Gino so that blame can be properly distributed when we have to turn around 3 hours further on up the road. “Did you see that sign?” “Yes.” “Surely they’d block the road or have a more detailed sign if we couldn’t get through to Johnsondale, so we’ll keep going.” “Yes.” With Gino clearly prepared to shoulder all the blame when it went wrong, we kept going.

Absolutely zero regrets was the result, this was one of the top 3 roads we’d done so far, there was hardly 100 m of straight in the whole trip. Plus, the altitude up in the high Sierras dropped the heat a lot. Into Johnsondale, we sought a coffee, and got one in the general store. These places are great, soon we were in discussion with the locals about what we were doing and where we were going, and then somehow giving other tourists advice on things as though we were locals; “Yeah, the road is closed at Upper Kumbuckta West Avenue but that won’t worry you if you are heading to Springville. And you’d best get a coffee here because the Coffee Camps don’t have any. Oh, thanks for the $10 tip, every little bit helps us out here.”

Down into Lake Isabella for a Mexican diner lunch experience in the once more very high temperatures, we girded the loins and other sensitive areas, it was about to get a lot worse as we pushed out into the Mojave Desert to Barstow. We had an Airbnb house booked out in the ‘burbs, and on arrival there were some synchronised twitching in the group’s loins – the Barstow ‘burbs are a bit confronting.

Sure, we were in the Mojave Desert, and sure they don’t have much water, but it looked very dusty, and very bleak. The problem with deserts is that any rubbish is on full display, there are no bushes or lush grasses to hide anything. Righto, the Airbnb house looks OK, the neighbours don’t have Shoot All Foreigners! signs on the front fence, let’s show no fear and go in. In we went, and it was very good. Air con set to counter the +40°C oven outside, all was well. Inventory taken, we were down to the supermarket to stock up and settle in.

The next day, No.98, was spent in Barstow with the usual activities such as laundry and Direct Factory Outlet shopping, why they put this out at Barstow was a bit of a mystery but Cindy and Kim didn’t ask any questions and just went for it. Gino and I went for the Route 66 museum instead, small but with very interesting information on the world’s most famous road. The construction of the road across the Mojave including to Barstow was easily the most challenging section due to sand, sand, and more sand.

Day 99 was a very big one, so big Cindy pried Gino off the Tiger and herself out of the airconditioned hire car. Target: Vegas. That alone makes it a big day, but we had something to pile onto that in terms of bigness. Off we went, through the heat to the appropriately named Baker which was experiencing just that. A coffee construction experience at the giant thermometer, involving finding the coffee machine, finding and filling a cup, then finding the half-and-half hidden somewhere else on the premises, and we pushed on after the thermonuclear temperature had calmed down enough for us to drink it.

An hour later, with lots of chit-chat on the intercom, we crossed the border into Nevada. The chit-chat had mainly focussed on safely stopping both bikes to get a photo of the Nevada sign, having the attire neatly arranged, and the hair brushed. Maybe a smidge of lippy to highlight the smiles. Definitely a fist-pump or a star jump, a few were practiced with the bikes in cruise control. Problem was, there wasn’t a border sign. Because Nevada is the casino capital of the world, a border sign would interfere with the Primm casino getting right up to the line. Oh dear. Not much option but to keep going. The first place to stop past Primm was a service centre with a Starbucks. That would do for lunch and a few selfies. The source of the excitement requiring selfies was simple – after crossing into Nevada we’d officially ridden in all 50 US states.

Tragically we’d missed Washington due to Cindy’s bike dramas in Oregon, so only had the lower 47 conquered so far this trip. But don’t worry – the trip wasn’t over just yet. Over the horizon was Las Vegas, our home for the next couple of nights and a place for Cindy’s now-horribly-stretched chain replacement. Should be able to find something to do there.