California: Long Beach to San Andreas

Jeanne made an interesting discovery this morning.

I grabbed the wrong passport. I have the expired one 🙁

But, call house/cat sitter. “I’ll give you the instructions on where my passport is, can you hit the FedEx store and send it to my cousin next day?”

“Absolutely.”

Assuming she can find it (and it should be there), we’ll still be able to go to Canada 🙂

109 degrees on the way out of LA. Bumper to bumper on the 405 north. Got some filtering done but the bike is wider than I’m less than comfortable if it’s close. Nothing like being stuck on the freeway in LA because I misjudged or some moron has a problem. Some guy wanted to dispute my passing but I made it anyway. And it was so hot, the tops of my feet itch and look and feel sunburnt. One of the worst things was we were behind a tall van/utility type truck, you know with the image of a guy standing in the back looking behind. Well, he all of a sudden stopped. Someone had dropped a bicycle in the road and it had been run over a few times so it was in two pieces. You must pay attention and be ready to dodge people and debris when riding.

Anyway, north on 99 above Bakersfield. Heading to Stockton and east to the B&B in San Andreas.

Got to Merced and headed up 140 to Mariposa. Straight run there. Bit twisty at the end but still on the hot side, mid 90’s.

Left on 49 and headed on. After Bear Creek Road, the twisties kicked in down to Bigby Rec Area. I’m not that confident when going downhill so it was slow going but still cool. Coming back up the other side and it’s all good fun.

Twisties again. Sun’s in my eyes, at a couple of places I almost come to a stop as I come around a steep turn and have no idea what’s in front of me.

After Coulterville and a few more twisties, we hook up on 120 and it’s cruising speed again. Up to Sonora after Chinese Camp then left to Angels Camp then San Andreas to Robin’s Nest B&B.

At Chinese Camp we stopped briefly to check maps. Turns out my cousin lives in Oakdale just a few minutes west. Up past Sonora is Twain Hart, where two of my aunts and uncles used to live. Back in 2004 when Rita and I were riding in the area, I realized where we were, heading to Yosemite, and made the turn to Twain Hart to see if they were still there. My Uncle Dick and Uncle Georgia and my Uncle Paul were. My Aunt Mona Jean had passed of breast cancer though. A call to check and we spent the night visiting. Uncle Paul passed just a few months later.

Robin’s Nest Bed and Breakfast. Quite the nice place although it was a bit difficult to locate the entrance. While the front of the house faces the main road, you have to circle around to get to the entrance. Parked the bike and chatted with the owners. Turns out we’re the only folks in tonight so we have the run of the place.

Bedroom:

No AC but it is somewhat cool and we can open the window to let cool air in.

And a large tub. I’ve never used such a thing before even though we’ve had them available in a few hotels. In this case we used it to rinse off the salt and sweat of the ride. It’s a [b]lot[/b] better when used this way. I’ve never been much of a tub person but this worked pretty well.

Coming down the stairs and looking at the dining room with the kitchen beyond.

The front room.

The sitting room.

We walked down to El Mexical for dinner. Then hit the big tub on the room to rinse off the salt and relax a bit before heading down to the sitting room to read.

We decided we didn’t have time for Tahoe if we were going to get back to my cousin Holly’s in time to actually be sociable, so we’ll be grabbing breakfast at 8 then off to Yosemite.

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