San Francsico to Garberville

Well, Northern California is largely a series of small towns separated by vineyards, redwoods and frigid coastal highways. Internet access has been harder to find than $4.50 gasoline so I am catching up on the last couple of days here in Crescent City California on Wednesday evening.

We left San Francisco on Tuesday morning crossing the Golden Gate with a heavy fog hanging just above our heads and stopped for one last look and a few pictures before leaving the coast for a while and riding up highway 101. This was the advice we got last night, and the route would take us through portions of wine country, farm communities some Redwoods and ultimately return us to the coast. As we left the coast the weather warmed a bit but not enough to ride in less than jackets and chaps. At a hamburger stand in Cloverdale we met another couple from Oregon who offered more advice on routes and things to see.

About half way through the day we left 101 and took highway 128, a twisty road perfect for motorcycles, back across to the coast. As we rode up the mountain the road was full of curves and switchbacks making for an interesting ride for me and case of nerves at times for my passenger, but we both agreed this was the most enjoyable day of riding we have had in quite a while. We came across the "Drive through tree" which is a private money maker charging $5 per car and $3 for bikes to drive through a tunnel cut into a Redwood.

One of the most interesting things we have seen these past days is a large number of bicyclists riding north to south along the coast some hauling camping gear on small trailers. Makes our ride seem rather lame by comparison, and I am hoping to have a chance to talk with one of them to find some details of their ride including ...why?

Sometime afternoon we took timeout for a wine tasting at Standish vineyard & winery... an interesting stop but we decided to limit this to one experience in a single day since I am the designated driver on this trip. Another stop in Mendocino on the coast, someone told us this is the set for Cabot Cove where Murder She Wrote was filmed, someone else said the Hitchcock movie The Birds was filmed, but I am not sure if either is true but it was an interesting little town somehow caught in the middle of the last century.

When we reached our originally planned stop for the night we decided to ride a couple of extra hours to Garberville, which we decided was Northern California's version of Bunnell Fl... if you are unfamiliar with Bunnell insert your own 1 red light redneck town, augment it with some dreadlocked transients, a retail shop on main street called the "Hemp Connection" and a rather large tattooed lady running our hotel and you can envision our resting place for this day.