Cali Trip Day 5--Last day on the bike

Wednesday

Despite sleeping well, we woke up early on Wed. morning and were on the road by 6:45am. Perhaps it was the fact that I wasn't sure exactly how long it would take us to get back to Mountain View that had me worried a bit. The morning temps were hovering around 51 deg so I hit the switch for the heated grips and raised the windscreen all the way up. Our goal for Wed. was to take scenic Hwy 70 out of the mountains and then head south and west back to Mountain View and the rental place. We had to be there no later than 5pm. 

The town of Chester rests on the north shore of Lake Almanor.  The water was like glass as we sailed by.

 Aside from a couple areas where we had to wait on road repairs being made, 70 is another great road. It follows the Feather River through the Plumas National forest and has lots of great corners, very good pavement, and great scenery too. 

Feather River, a train, and mountains.  

More views on Hwy 70

TUNNEL!!

The west end of 70 had brand new tarmac so it was billiard table smooth with a great combo of high speed sweepers to cap it off.

Once we dropped out of the mountains, the temperature immediately started rising, the road straightened out and the traffic increased. We stopped for gas, shed our thermal layers and settled into the long slog back to Ingred's home. We hit Sacramento about lunch time and enjoyed Thai food at a place right off the interstate. Once we hit Sacramento, traffic really picked up and it was pretty much wall to wall cars all the way back to Mountain View. I had not really ever ridden in that much traffic for that length of time and found it to be really stressful. I tried to utilize the HOV lanes as much as possible, kept a pace slightly quicker than the flow of traffic and scanned ahead for signs of trouble. The problem was since we didn't have the use of our GPS, I didn't know how much farther we had, when the next turn was coming up or anything. We had jotted down the directions earlier so Angela would just call out the next interstate or road that I needed to take. The issue with that was the fact that the high temperatures had caused the glue on the double sided tape that holds Angela's communicator to her helmet to soften, allowing her communicator to fall off at random times. So while she was trying to play navigator, she was also trying to hold her communicator on and keep everything where it needed to be. Regardless of the difficulties, she did a marvelous job.

We arrived at the rental place with plenty of time to spare. I was relieved to return Ingred to her owners in the same condition that we had gotten, except with an extra 907 miles on the odometer and a lot less rubber on the tires. So long Ingred, it was a great ride!

Our next hotel was located in downtown San Francisco at the west end of Lombard street. Once we got close to the city, traffic slowed to a crawl and remained that way all the way to our hotel. It took us about 2 hours to get from the bike rental place to our hotel. After getting checked in, we hopped on a bus and went straight to the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge itself was really cool. My gripe is with all the wanna be Lance Armstrongs that feel the need to ride across the bridge at full clip. We saw one cyclist wreck when someone unknowingly backed into his path.

Big Brother is watching you!

After many pictures of the bridge and surrounding areas, we headed off to China Town for dinner. Angela picked a great restaurant and we enjoyed authentic chinese food for a change.  It seems like every chinese restaurant in the state of MS serves exactly the same junk, so when none of the dishes on the menu at the Great Eastern restaurant sounded familiar, I knew we were in for a treat. Angela's clay pot dish held several sea food items we couldn't identify, but each one as really tasty. The Peking Duck I ordered was juicy, with a nice, crispy skin. And the steamed rolls were incredibly light with just a hint of sweetness.

After dinner, we strolled through China Town and then decided to work off dinner by walking all the way back to our hotel. This included walking up the crookedest street in the country. That is one steep hill!