Day 71. San Francisco, California. Leisurely day sightseeing in San Francisco - really steep streets, sea lions on Pier 39, a visit to the SS Jeremiah O'Brien, and dinner in Chinatown. See photos.

Day 70. San Francisco, California. We should have realised that something was up when we found the motorbikes covered in ash this morning. Hearing the staff talking about evacuations should have been another clue. It wasn't until we were on a surprisingly busy Highway 1 and queuing for fuel that we heard about the California wildfires. It turns out that we were in the evacuation area for Santa Rosa city, where residents had been told to evacuate at 01:00 this mo...

Day 69. Fort Bragg, California. One of our most challenging days of motorcycling today, in terms of twists and turns, and rollercoaster ups and downs. A tiring but fun 250 miles in total. Firstly, west along Route 36 over the mountains; then south on the Avenue of Giants (with its giant redwood trees) and through the middle of a tree (see photos); and finally down the coast on Highway 1 to Fort Bragg, as the sunset and the cold mist arrived. This means that af...

Day 68. Red Bluff, California. We left Lake Tahoe today - having decided that we had enough time to fit in another of the National Parks (Lassen Volcanic). The road there followed the Sierra Nevada mountains north, up Route 89. It was very quiet and we hardly saw a soul outside of the small towns on our route. It was also some of the best motorcycling that we've had for a while. On the way we also got the chance to break out the camping stove and grab a boil i...

Day 67. Lake Tahoe, California. Decided to explore Lake Tahoe today and drive around the 72 mile circumference. A busy, but scenic drive. We saw more traffic today than we have for weeks and actually had to queue in a few places. However, now we are in California we are allowed to filter between lanes, which helps. Unlike the U.K., most states in America ban filtering (or lane splitting, as they call it here), which means that you lose one of the main spee...