Coast to high desert

We headed south through Marin county, then up over the pass into Sausalito. Fog was around and visibility, not the 10 mph curves became the bottleneck. We braved the San Francisco traffic and found ourselves out on the coast again. THe road sped up through Monterrey. Check out Tom's landscape shot of the coast (In my opinion, one of the best shots of the trip). The weather was warm and the road fast as we headed through Santa Cruz.

Shortly after Monterrey, I saw the sign for 63 miles of curves ahead. Unlike Sonoma and Marin counties, the road here was a bit quicker (perhaps a 45 mph average). What struck me was the rocky coast, and why someone would want to put a highway here. Perhaps, the most beautiful section of road on our trip (though probably not the most beautiful section of scenery, that remains the Canadian Rockies). Big Sur yielded a short break. one I dearly needed as the concentration required was starting to get to me. We ended the curves and San Simean. Alas, no time to stop at the Hearst Castle (though I did try to find a rosebud for the night's trash fire).

We finished our ride in Pismo. Matt and Travis (firefighters I met in Death Valley this last year, Tom from the year before) came down to the campsite and had a cold one with us. Even better they set us up with a route for the next day.

We headed from Pismo back to SLO and changed our oil at the firehouse. By far the quickest and neatest oil change of the trip. The chief on duty (pardon as I don't recall his name - I was changing oil while Tom talked with him) gave us an alternate start route thru wine country.

As we traveled inland we found heat and desert. So much so that 18 miles into our dirt road track we had to stop. Tom had lost a bag and I felt i was pushing the limits of a fully loaded KLR. We checked the GPS and thought ourselves less than halfway to a road. A quick check of the laptop showed us 1.5 miles from Pozo. We hit a water crossing which lifted our moods. Even better the forest ranger in Pozo said our road out was in much better shape than what we had taken. A quick jaunt thru bakersfield (har har) left us climbing another tight windy road to Lake Isabella.

We found a campground on the river and went bathing. twice. Then we found the brewery. But it was a short night as we planned on an early start to beat the heat.

Not much to say about today. We pounded the pavement up over Walker Pass (that sounds historically significant, will have to research it later) and hit I-40 to Kingman. Due to some wind and high speed I hit reserve with 20 miles to go. I had to dump the gas from the un-drained lobe with 10 miles to go. But we found a cheap (<40$) hotel room with a pool on old route 66. Panacea.

Hope the pictures do the barren plains justice. Tomorrow we are off to Flag and on to the MOgollon rim (i believe) which will leave me returning to Phoenix Thursday AM while Tom wanders around for a bit more eventually heading down south for some bird hunting.