That would be from where we woke up on Day 4 to home.
Day 4 was always going to be a beeline, a long milage day, a pavement pounder.
Since we only had 4 days total we pretty much knew that we could burn the first 3 days any way we wanted and on the 4th day we could hit a highway and “beeline it” home.
We did that once in Utah, waking up near the Grand Canyon and doing a thousand miles to get home. On that trip it would have been a perfect story but I burned up my back tire on the hot asphalt coming out of Vegas and by the time we hit Fresno we were searching for a local tire store. (We found a Cycle Gear that had a tire in stock and was willing to stay open past closing for us).
On this day, we woke up amongst the glorious redwood giants.
We skipped breakfast, packed up and hit the road early. We planed to find a local roadside place and get something more substantial in our guts than our quick oats.
We found a small little place in the next town of Miranda. At 7 am the only thing open was the local breakfast hole. We walked in and sure enough, nothing but locals. The locals were either retired folks or logging truckers. We figured how could we go wrong, eh? It’s that little building in the middle.
Well…
For some reason looking at the menu, the Huevos Rancheros stood out to me. Coincidentally, they did for Ernie as well. There’s were two versions, one was the traditional style with red sauce, the other was with a green chile sauce. I chose the green and Ernie chose the red.
It turns out that you should never order Huevos Rancheros in a place like this. Trust me, just stick with the pancakes.
This is what we were hoping for in Huevos Rancheros
That’s not even close to what we got. The red sauce looked like it came from a jar of salsa from a dollar store. Thin as could be, no flavor. The same for my green chile style. I was so tempted to pull out my phone and take a picture but I feared if I did we’d be pummeled out back by the locals. You really don’t need a picture any way.
Back on the Road…
We got back on the bikes, gassed up at a station next door and we were soon “beelining” down Hwy 101.
Very few stops, very few pictures, and no video.
We zipped down Hwy 101 till we got to Hwy 20.
Hwy 20 took us to the top of Upper Lake and we travelled along the north side of the lake.
We were talking as we went through the towns of Nice and Lucerne along the lake. There’s a sign somewhere that proudly proclaims the area as “The Switzerland of America” and it might have been so – in the ’50s. Today there are hints of former swiss architecture but the entire area looks like it hasn’t been upgraded since those glory days. Having just come back from a weekend in Solvang (the Danish capital in the US) I can say there’s no comparison. But hey, Lucerne really isn’t a vacation destination these days. No money means no upgrades.
Moving past the lake, Hwy 20 heads East where we connected once again with Hwy 16.
We stopped for a quick lunch in Winters and then back on Hwy 16 to Hwy 505. I headed south towards home and Ernie continued on Hwy 16 towards Sacramento (home for him).
All in all it was a great 4 days. I’d like to do it again and find more dirt once we get to the forest sections and if we had the time I know you can do a lot of dirt all the way up to the Canada border!
Oh, I almost forgot the ending Mileage!
Start at 23,079 giving me a total 1,016 miles. 🙂
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, had a big cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and is currently building a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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