Roads from Sierra Nevada to the Pacific Ocean

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All kinds of roads took us from the majestic Yosemite National Park to our hidden retreat in the tall redwoods outside Mendocino, where we will hike for a week. The roads started with the incredible CA-41 that winds endlessly down from the Wawona Hotel, fleeing the towering sequoias, lodgepole pine and incense cedars for 40 miles, then traveling West through the Sacramento River delta, and finally to wine-proud Napa for the night. The next morning we followed the breathtakingly beautiful CA-1 from Jenner to Mendocino, meandering along the Pacific coast. Many bicyclists were traveling this narrow and busy highway, passed by several clutches of motorcyclists that tore past single file or in pairs. In addition, there was road repair, RVs, houses crowding the right-of-way, heavy-duty wiring dangling across the road, and trees arching over the pavement. In-between the mountains and the coast were a vast variety of roads:
two-way roads winding through very dry countryside that, at times, bore a resemblance to Tuscany; super highways of 6 - 12 lanes with endless truck traffic; intermittent road repair; and fortunately few sections of road in very rough condition. Our routes had been selected and Google directions printed out before we left Minnesota, but we found our iPhone app for maps to be indispensable in finding our way. We felt like we were in a game watching the pulsing blue dot of our vehicle wind its way along the blue line for our route to the red dot of our chosen destination.

Most of the photos were taken from inside the car as wewound up CA-1...by the passenger, of course.

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