Day 1: As promised..

After all the waiting, we are finally on our way. We left Oakland at 5:30 am, still dark. Chris started out on The Much Loved, after a few miles of “taking it easy” (SLOW), he gave me the thumbs up and we took off in earnest.

We blasted up the 101 and just got used to the bikes, just getting a rhythm. It was dark and foggy and actually, bloody freezing, we had to stop and put on the cold weather gear. There was a moment, just North of Cloverdale, wear the fog suddenly cleared, the sun came out and the mountains and vineyards came in to view. I actually whooped in my helmet!

Breakfast in The Avenue of the Giants and we found a nice big tree to drive through.

We continued up the 101 and hit highway 36 East at around 2Pm.

36 is my favourite road in CA, 140 miles of uphill, downhill, twisty canyons and fast straights. Unfortunately this year, a lot of it is under construction and there are long stretches of gravel with big trucks on it. It was pretty sketchy.

Eventually, we set up our first camp site at my secret spot, Mad River. We arrived there in the early afternoon and had a very peaceful time cooling down in the water.

I did see a couple of otters playing on the river bank. Very special. They left us alone and thankfully, did not eat us.

So all in all, day one was a roaring success, everything we hoped it would be.