Another month and another run down to the beaches of Southern California for an extended long weekend of fun! The previous two runs to and from the area in about as many months, had been along the coast to enjoy the crystal clear coastal beauty that the Indian summer serves up along the coastline. On this day, I chose to play on some of the more in land roads of Central California, to enjoy them before the summer heat burns everything to a crisp, including the riders..
The route I had planned was a mixture of a some twisty but fast highways, some boring slab and then also some remote back roads to keep things interesting. I left out some other very tempting offerings in the area for another day, possibly the return trip, but this was still going to be a 736 mile day. Narrating that story here, no fancy and pretty pictures in this one, mostly just 'from the saddle' photography..
An early-ish start and some early slab work through Sacramento (love the new car pool lane on Hwy 50!) and I-5 through Lodi, Stockton and Manteca areas, put me on Hwy 152/156 towards Hollister where I planned to stop for breakfast at the Country Rose Cafe. In my opinion it is the best Breakfast joint in Hollister and when not in a hurry to pile on the miles, very worth the while to stop for a leisurely breakfast.
Breakfast stop Country Rose Cafe. This time I tried the Steak and Eggs with Salsa. The Salsa was homemade and very good! Found a seat at the big glass window overlooking the very small parking lot, as popular as the place is locally - parking is usually an issue on weekends, but not this day as it was a weekday and I was here for a late breakfast.
Had been craving one last motorcycle touring trip in the Sierra Mountains before they get snowed in, I picked Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon because I had never been there and Autumn is a great time to visit the Parks with most of the maddening swarms of people back to work or school.
Day 1: Oct 9th, 2009
Here is a pic of the bike all prepped and ready to go in the morning. I had rigged up the Garmin Nuvi 780 GPS to my bike (powered by a relay and mounted with a RAM handlebar mount) for this trip.
The GPS has a built-in MP3 player and voice guidance. I was able to import the routes and way points from MotoDan's paper maps into Mapsource and then into the GPS for turn by turn voice directions through the forest roads, the GPS actually interrupts your music to alert you of upcoming way points or turns and then starts playing again- sweet!!
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