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Avenue of the Giants ended in Gaberville. We stopped to fill up on gas and noticed something odd. It was a charming town but filled with odd visistors. We'll call them wannabe hippies. The didn't look like genuine hippies from the 70s but they were trying their best. Most trying to hitch a ride, but some had old VW vans. 

Driving down the Avenue of the Giants put us south of the main road we came here for, Highway 36. Fortunately the Pashnit website also had a solution. Drive up Alderpoint Road from Gaberville.  This road wasn't in the best condition but offered some outstanding views. It climbed from Gaberville up into the hills. This road didn't seem to lead anywhere. It was really a classic backroad.  Very few houses along the way and the town of Alderpoint was just a small collection of houses. Old trucks and cars that had went off the sharp curves were piled in some corners. It must be too hard to remove them. A road like this would've been gravel in Minnesota. Not here.

We popped out onto Highway 36 and took a small break to pump ourselves up for the ultimate motorcycle road. After a trip down to a small creek we wound the bikes up for 100miles of smooth curves and pavement. In the middle where it crossed some of the steeper hills it would narrow down to a single lane in short mile segments. Sharing the roadway with oncoming traffic. You really needed to trust other drivers would stick to their side of the road in the blind corners. It certainly cut down on our speed in spots. Heading east the terrain turned more mountainous then more arid. On the eastern half the road wound between property lines and over rollercoaster hills. The road was everything that was promised. It's one place from this trip we will return to one day. At one point in the last section before Red Bluff,  the camera I was using to take road shots spilled onto the roadway. The strap had caught the velcro of my glove and pulled out of my pocket. Somehow it bounced like a football into the path of both Carrie's R1100RT and Paul's Gl1800. Luckily the metal body saved the memory card and the 80+ pictures from earlier in the day. 

We jumped onto I-5 and headed south to get into wine country. I found a walmart in the GPS in Willows to purchase another decent camera since my backup was poor at best.  We got off I-5 on Hwy 20 and headed to Clearlake. There were some brush fires in the area and helicopters and airplanes hovered overhead dumping water. After Clearlake we headed down Hwy 29 to Calistoga. We'd be in the heart of wine country and it would be a great place for dinner. Much to our surprise, 29 through us into some really tight curves right before town. We were really not mentally ready for this series of switchbacks with heavy traffic. We thought we were done after jumping on the freeway. The locals obviously new the curves quite well with opposing traffic inches from our heads as we were leaned over. It was the first time I had actually been dizzy on a motorcycle and the pure mechanics of riding the bike took over.

We stayed at a Comfort Inn in Calistoga and walked into town for dinner. The dinner at the FlatIron Grill was unremarkable. Like a Ponderosa with a nice atmosphere. After dinner we took advantage of a mineral pool hot tub. 

Pictures: Click the thumbnails to enlarge

Friday 8/27/04: Calistoga, CA to Reno, NV

We started our day with a trip to a winery. Ferrari-Carano would be our destination. We wanted to take a tour of the winery but I had neglected to make reservations. Instead we purchased a case and had it shipped back home. We would still beat it by days. 

After the winery we went down another Pashnit road, Skaggs Spring Road. This started out with great sweeping curves like Highway 36 but soon transitioned to a rougher narrower road like Alderpoint. We popped out of the tightening road at Stewarts Point.  At Stewarts Point we headed down hwy1 to San Francisco. This road was much slower than anticipated. It put us in downtown San Francisco on a Friday at 5pm trying to get out of town with rush hour traffic and 97degrees.  Going down here probably wasn't wise, but going this far without crossing the golden gate bridge would be a sin. The carpool lane saved us hours but we still made terrible time to Sacramento. 

In Sacramento we stopped at an Inn&out Burger. We meet a friend of Paul's from the Norton mailing list there. He brought his Norton for show and tell. The company and the burger's were great. We even ran into an Iron Butt Rally veteran, Randy Owen after he recognized our license plate frame. We gabbed until his burgers were good and cold. It was great to spend a couple of hours being lazy and not riding. 

It was getting dark when we left Sacramento but we needed to put a few miles behind us. We had a desert crossing tomorrow and the 97degree heat from this day was enough to make us drive through the dark for a while. We missed seeing the Sierra Nevada mountains and arrived in Reno at a Holiday Inn. Paul hunted down some beer and we retired for the night.

Day 8: 392miles

Pictures: Click the thumbnails to enlarge

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Last edited 10/03/2004