31.7.10

Straight west coastin'

This past week been another great one. A week filled with new sights and new experience. That's what life is all about. I left Oregon and new that my next main destination was the San Fran bay area. I knew what I wanted to see between central oregon and San Fran, but that's about all I knew. This past week has been all about "the scenic route."

Stop 1 was Crater Lake. I have heard of Crater Lake, as I'm sure most of you all have, but I really didn't know what to expect. Sure enough, it was a big, beautiful lake within a crater. I might not take a trip all the way to Oregon just to see this particular sight, but being that it was more or less on my way to the NorCal Coast, it was well worth the minor detour.
Southern Oregon didn't have quite the beauty and charm as central and northern parts, but everytime I crossed over the Rogue River, I got quite excited.

I hit the Pacific Coast at Crescent City, CA. This was the first of a number of mildly depressing costal towns that I passed through. I don't know if it was the thick fog, or the shadows casted by the giant redwoods, but most of the towns in this region gave me bad vibes.
I meandered down the 101, slowly making my way through redwood country. I was really looking forward to seeing these giants, and a bit disappointed. I kept driving south into the night. I saw signs for "Avenue of the Giants," and remembered hearing that this was a scenic route worth taking. I decided to pull off the road and illegally "camp" off the side of the road so I could see these so called Giants in the morning.
They were some big old trees, and this scenic route was much more scenic with the sun up.
I was pretty excited to see giant redwoods and their roots...

Back to the coast I headed, making my way south through more tiny, depressing, costal towns. I slowly and steadily made my way down the coast. Despite thick fog, sights were still awesome. This was uncharted territory for me. My next stop would be uncharted territory as well.
I headed inland to Napa Valley, where the wine flows like... wine. Here I did what most do in Napa and had my first wine tasting experience. Two wineries (Conn Creek and Elizabeth Spencer) managed to get me a bit wined (or wound?) up. I did learn, that knowledge of tasting wine comes with practice... I need more practice.

From Napa I was Bay bound... via Point Reyes, where I stopped and pedaled my bike for a bit.
I came across the Golden Gate and headed into downtown, for the touristy stuff; fisherman's wharf area, and of course, Haight Ashbury. Yea... SF is sweet. I'm a bit overwhelmed by big cities though.
Mid Peninsula is where I reside, right near Stanford, and with a view of the bay. I got a feel for bay area MTBing this morning at El Corte de Madera Creek. Pretty cool stuff... and most importantly, I didn't get lost.
From here, its back inland. I miss the mountains, and I here the Sierra Nevadas are nice this time of year.

BA - out

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