Tuesday
Another
epic day of riding in the books. Out of the hotel by nine am, we
started off by back tracking just a bit to go back to Humboldt
Redwoods State Park for some pictures since we didn't actually stop
on our way through yesterday. It was neat to get up close a personal
to those old trees. I'm still blown away by the size of them.
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| Panorama of a fallen Giant Redwood. |
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| Angela loved the Redwoods. |
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| How do I get the pictures to rotate back to vertical? |
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| Walking around this grove of trees felt like being in church. |
After
a few pictures we're back in sport touring mode as we turned east at
the start of CA Hwy 36, which is supposed to be one of the all time
great motorcycle roads in CA. Since I haven't ridden much of
California, I can't tell if its one of the greatest, but I can say
that it is an amazing stretch of pavement. 36 starts innocently
enough with a lazy trip through a small grove of redwoods and then
begins a twisting accent into the mountains with a lot of slow, tight
first and second gear corners. After gaining some elevation, the
road opens up a bit and we enjoyed several assents and decents that
were just amazing....great pavement, and never ending series of 3rd
and fourth gear corners that kept the bike leaned way over for what
seemed to be an eternity.
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| A scene from the western portion of Hwy 36 |
We
entered Shasta National Forest high in the mountains. Scenery was
breathtaking with fantastic vistas but the road still demanded all of
my attention. We came around one corner to find a Doe and her fawn
in the road. We hit the brakes and they got on the gas and scaled a
near vertical dirt and rock wall to escape Ingred's oncoming
headlight. We saw a few more deer within the next couple of miles as
well as one kamikazi chipmunk. We stopped for a break at a scenic
overlook and finished off the cherries we had purchased at a roadside
stand a couple of days before. After this we decended out of Shasta
national forest with a great series of corners with one high speed
sweeper in particular that had me laughing out load in my helmet...it
was soooo loooong and just kept begging for more speed and lean
angle.
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| Somewhere in Shasta National Forest |
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| See those corners? Now picture riding those for a few hours non-stop...that's CA 36. |
At this
point, the landscape changed from alpine to dry, arid, land with
scrubby trees.
Hwy 36
changed its tone too...now instead of long corners leading up and
down mountains, the hwy followed the contours of the land...short
hills and quick, sharp corners. It was exactly like a roller
coaster. This portion definitely kept me on my toes since there were
plenty of blind corners and turns hidden right behind the hill
crests. At one point, I'm sure I could have gotten the big RT
airborne had we gotten enough speed. Sadly, we got behind some dude in an old RV and missed out on some of the fun.
The fun
came to an end just as we entered the town of Red Bluff. By this
point it was 85 degrees and we needed to shed a few layers as well as
fuel the bike and ourselves. I must admit that Ingred had shown she
could dance quite well, way better than her chunky looks and heft
would have me believe. There were no more chicken strips on the back
tire!
After a
lunch of pizza and salad, we continued east on 36 to Lassen Volcanic
National Park. We once again climed into the moutnains and enjoyed
fantastic scenery. I think we hit elevations around 8000ft. The
snow pack was still several feet high in many places in the park.
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| Scenic overlook a few miles east of Redbluff on Hwy 36 |
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| See that snow capped peak off in the distance? That's where we were headed. |
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| Angela and Ingred at the entrance to the park |
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| These little flowers were soaking up as much sun as possible |
My mom always reminded me that I was snow angel.
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| Still a lot of snow up there in July |
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| Steam vent. |
After taking our time in the park, we continued on to Chester, where
we stayed for the night. Since there was a nice little park right
behind the hotel and a grocery store across the street, we decided to
cook our own dinner that night. We walked across the street to the grocery store and bought food and charcoal, then walked back across the street to the park and cooked up a wonderful dinner of steak,
grilled asparagus (stinky pee!!!) and toasted fresh rolls. We ate
them beside a bubbling creek while we watched a city softball game at
the nearby field. It was fantastic.
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| Before |
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| After |
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| This is the look of happiness after one of the BEST DAYS EVER! |
Truly, this has been one of the best days of riding I have ever had. Hwy 36 lived up to the hype. It was long and varied in terrain, vistas, and elevation as well as the types of curves. The weather was perfect. The bike was perfect for the job and I couldn't wish for a better traveling companion in Angela.
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