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Published: September 5th 2006
Lake Tahoe
From Emerald Bay3rd to 17th August 2006
Before I start this one, let me take you back to Utah. Remember how I ranted on and on about Highway Twelve? Remember how I expertly described the varying landscapes, fauna and flora of that particular part of the country? Remember how I wrote excitedly about entering the Beechwood forests along that winding byway? Remember that I studied Horticulture for five years? Yeah, well....... I ought to know the bloody difference between a Beech and a Birch then, shouldn’t I? I thought I better point out the slip-up before someone else did. Dr Tree my foot!! Ok, enough backtracking, here's your update on my TWAT (Trans Western America Tour).
I coasted in to California after un-intentionally riding around Reno for an hour and a half. This was an accidental city tour caused by exiting the interstate too late and the appearance of an army of diversion signs, which took me all through downtown and around. Still, it did give me a good overview of the place that I wouldn’t have had otherwise- it’s just a bunch of hotels, bars, strip joints and, of course, the customary casinos in a dusty desert oasis. Bright
Tenaya Lake
On the way in to Yosemite lights, big city- didn’t impress me!
Up over the next mountain pass and I WAS impressed as I took in the vista of Lake Tahoe for the first time. It’s cobalt Blue waters shimmered in the sun light and made a striking contrast to the dark greens and emeralds of the coniferous forests that line it’s shores (‘not taking any chances on naming the specific species this time)! The scene was all very welcoming but, not nearly as welcoming as the friends that I have there. Even though they weren’t in when I arrived, they told me they had an “Open” house and to make myself at home. At first I thought they meant “Open” as in there were other people staying there but, no, they meant “Open.” It is common practice in these parts to leave your doors unlocked which I, personally, believe to be a bit on the unwise side. This is not because the tourist road that rings the lake is only a short distance away (and wherever there are tourists there are thieves) but, more to do with the fact that Black Bears live here. In addition to this rather important bit of info, when
My Furry Friend
Who lived at "The Bug" hostel near Yosemite my friends arrived, I was informed (although I still swear it’s a wind up) that their furry friends have actually learned to use door handles! As far as I’m aware, they haven’t got skeleton keys yet so, while I was there, I bolted the bloody doors.
The highlights of my time in Tahoe were; A sailing trip out on the lake (up through the trees and over the mountains was, I suppose, rather unlikely), a hike up to above the snowline-ish at Ellis Peak-ish (we didn’t quite make it all the way to the top but, the views from where we did get to were as breathtaking as the altitude) and cooking a full Sunday roast for the hosts with another visitor they had from the UK at same time (the real fun to this one was poster-ing up their house as a restaurant called “Claiming Back The Colonies” and then watching our friends find it hard to move a muscle after a tonne of Yorkshire Pudding had been consumed). The real highlight of my first few days in California, though, was spending time with the people there. They are all “Tip-Top.”
From Tahoe, and for the first
Ranger and Roots
At Mariposa Grove, Yosemite time of any real significance on my US road trip, I headed south towards the splendour of Yosemite National Park. I rode through many special places en route; Emerald Bay (Tahoe still), Mono Lake near the Nevada border and several mountain passes but, none of these could compare to Yosemite’s varied beauty; From the snow-capped peaks to the waterfalls, rivers and lakes their glaciers create and from the massive granite monoliths of El Capitan, Sentinel and Half Dome to the valley floor and wild flower meadows that Elk and Bears frequent, it is all stunning. It is no wonder it is one of Americas most popular parks and that is the one detrimental factor in paying the place a visit; There are too many people there. This, and the enormous rock-slide at the entrance nearest to where I was staying (Causing me to take a one hundred and forty mile detour in and out of the park), meant I only spent two days there. I could have easily explored Yosemite for a couple of weeks but, time would not allow such luxuries on this whirlwind tour of the western states.
Speaking of west, it was my next intended direction.
Illiloutte Falls
From Glacier Point Down from The Sierra Nevada range, through Modesto (where the father of all things Star Wars, George Lucas, was born- sorry, just had to be mentioned), up around Oakland and in to San Francisco where Tony Bennet and, far more importantly, my Dad left his heart.
The song doesn’t mention a few things about the city; Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t say that the Tenderloin area (where I spent my first night) is full of drunks, junkies and prostitutes or that it can take nearly two hours for your Dim Sum to be delivered to your table in a Chinatown restaurant. Neither does it state just how windey Lombard Street- “The World’s Windey-est Road”- actually is or, how full of pot-holes the rest of the streets of San Francisco really are. Also not noted in Mr. Bennet’s ballad or, funnily enough, in my father’s far superior rendition, is how bleedin' cold it can be. The ocean breeze blows in off of the bay and the smog obscures the sun so much sometimes that part of me was wishing I was back in Arizona’s arid deserts. No wonder Mark Twain was once quoted as saying “The coldest Winter I ever spent was
Half Dome
From the valley floor the Summer I spent in San Francisco.” And finally, the song fails to say how much you can fit in to a few short days there; As well as the experiences above, I managed to ride across The Bay Bridge and enjoyed it just as much as the five times I went over The Golden Gate (part and parcel of spending the rest of my nights in the area outside of the metropolis), I wandered around Downtown, Chinatown, Japantown, Russian Hill, Haight/Ashbury (where the likes of Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead once resided) and caught views of the cityscape, the bridges and Alcatraz from The Presidio and Fisherman’s Wharf (although, the infamous smog did it’s level best to make a complete fog-up of my photos)!
Despite the cold, the misty vistas and the joint-jarring roads, I thought San Francisco was fantastic. I could hear my Dad singing his song in my ears all the time I was there and I felt like I was living this little leg of the journey for the both of us. So, here’s a special message just for him; It’s true, those little cable cars do climb half way to the stars and,
you’ll be pleased to hear that, on my last day in the city by the bay, it’s golden sun did (eventually) shine for me. However, even though I looked everywhere, I couldn’t find your heart (bloody careless of him to lose it in the first place, really- he reckons he lost it in the Black Hills of Dakota once, too). So, I won’t be able to bring it home to you when I eventually get there but, I did leave a piece of mine in San fraaan-cisco to keep yours company.
Near the top of my list of Americana ambitions was to ride along Route One on California’s rugged north coast. Leaving the bay area, I started out along this historic highway on a day that proved to me further that staying positive and persevering are worth their weight in gold. Hitting the road just after sunrise, the sun was nowhere to be seen. A blanket of fog had been thrown over the bed of the land bordering the sea and this smoggy duvet obscured all views of the world-renowned craggy coastline. It also did a damn good job of hiding the road itself, which made the ride a
San Francisco...
Where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.... tadge more interesting to say the least. This misty shroud dropped the temperature down to finger-numbing figures and was so thick, it felt like I was riding through a rain cloud. Wet and cold with nothing to see, except my left index digit trying in vain to constantly clear my visor, I kept telling myself; The sun WILL soon burn this off and it WILL all be perfect. Five hours later, around eleven am, and I was still repeating it! What made matters worse was Suzi’s apparent inability to deal with the chilly, damp start to the day quite as well(?) as I was. She was coughing and spluttering along and even cut out completely on a number of occasions. I put this down to a worn out spark plug’s unwillingness to perform in the difficult conditions and eventually stopped at Elk, around lunchtime, to remove the offending object. Easier said than done when Suzuki’s design whiz kids decree that, to get to said component, you have remove the seat and the petrol tank. An hour later and, although the sun had finally started to break down the fog- improving my personal condition somewhat- poor old Suzi’s remained the same....
It wasn’t the plug.
This is where the perseverance comes in. Despite her constant coughing, I pushed Suzi on in the unfaltering belief (or is that blind hope) that we WOULD make it to someone, somewhere, soon that would be able to cure her ills. And, sure enough, we did. In Fort Bragg, we found a fixer of two-wheeled machines who managed to solve the mystery of Suzi’s misbehavior…… A great big lump of crud in her carburetor’s main jet. Once it was removed, she was back to her old self. I then found an inexpensive private room in a funky Eco-farm near town and ended the day by watching a spectacular sunset; Looking out over The Pacific, with no obstructions what-so-ever, the sun seemed to double in size as it dropped from the sky towards the watery horizon. An intense shade of burnt orange, it’s illumination of the heavens with a similar hue faded gently, like the dying embers of a fire losing their glow. And then, it slipped slowly and silently into the sea as if it would never be seen again. My first day on Route One had begun with discomfort and frustration but, it had
come to a much more comfortable conclusion. That’s positive thinking for you- it’s all in the mind!
Highway One treated me better the next day too. The fog dissipated earlier in the day, affording me glimpses of the shore before the road diverted in land and joined Highway One-O-One. At it’s deviation from the coast, the highway meanders up in to the mountains and enters the Redwood forests. This is where I discovered “Crash-Hat-Cam.” By selecting the video mode on my camera and jamming it in between my helmet’s chin piece and my face, I found I could capture the experience of speeding through the super-large Sequoias. I used this ingenious idea again while I worked my way through Redwood National Park, in the far north-west corner of California, to try to capture the scale and beauty of the old growth trees there. However, to do the giants of the arboricultural world justice, I also dismounted and wandered the woods for a while too. After all, it is difficult to concentrate on what is around you when you’re trying to watch the road with your head turned to one side to get a good angle, and you have a
chunk of metal forcing your face in to a Billy Idol-esque snarl as it squashes your nose in to your cheek! The trees themselves were amazing by the way but, don't get me started on it- you'd get very bored, very quickly given my super-indepth knowledge on the subject. That is, if I managed to get the name right this time.
From Klamath, at the north entrance to the park, it is only a short ride along the coast-hugging highway to the Oregon border. But, dissapointingly, on the morning I left California the fog was again as thick as it had been when I left San Francisco and the roads were as bad as they had been when I first entered the state. Mind you, the state of the tarmac I traverse at home is just as bad, and people from around my way always say you know when you’re back in Berkshire because the condition of the roads is crap. Maybe California was just trying to make me feel at home. It occurred to me that, as I left the state, this was certainly true of the people I know and met there.
Oregon will have to
go some way to be as accommodating and “Open.”
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Bob Wombacher, Jr.
non-member comment
Very interesting commentary...
Be sure to keep me on your list of readers. You're a good writer.