This blog is back dated to when we were in San Francisco and California has taken up so much of our time I will write several blogs on the state, rather than one big one.
We entred California in the North West corner through a redwood forest called Jedediah Smith Redwood NP. It was our first encounter with the Redwoods. We were coming down Hwy 199 and while it was nice, it wasn't what we had expected, but as luck would have it, we turned off the Hwy and found our selves on a small dirt road that weaved its way through the most magnificent and majestic forest we have seen, it was taking us through these huge, monsterous trees that were like nothing we could have imagined, and there weren't one or two here and there, they were everywhere. Words and photos can't do justice to being there, it really was something. From this beauty we went to the coast and the California fog, we followed this down to Arcata where we turned inland and headed to Lassen Volcanic NP. We couldn't believe that as we headed inland the temperature was climbing rapidly and by the time we were about 150km in from the coast it was in the 40s, it was around 16° on the coast! Lassen was a lovely park created around a volcano that last erupted in 1915, a fascinating area that few people appear to visit. We then headed back to the coast and the cold fog, couldn't believe it again! This time we hit the coast around Fortuna and on the recommendation of a friend followed a very small, narrow, winding road along close to the coast. This road reminded us of some of the tiny English country roads we have ridden, it was quiet and had brilliant views along the coast, it took us to Humboldt Redwoods state park, here again we were amongst these majestic beauties. They weren't as dense in this forest and we were able to take walks amongst them, one here was in 1991, 363 feet tall and had a circumference of 53 feet, incredible! We followed the highway for a bit as it cut through the redwoods until at Leggett we joined Hwy 1 and followed the coast down to Albion where we turned inland again. We went through Napa, one of California's wine regions and couldn't believe the wineries and how much land was taken up by vines. Wine drinkers will hate me for saying, "What a waste of land, they could be growing crops to feed people with". We were heading to Sacramento to have a few days of R&R in a kind of resort/campground, it was wonderful and we met some amazing people while we were there, America needs more people like the ones we met here. While we were here both Julie and I had a go at archery for the first time, which was fun. Sacramento was a nice city, we had a little look around while killing time before meeting with a couple of Policemen we had met in Yukon, they were taking us out to lunch which was really nice and it was great catching up with them again. Then it was onto San Francisco. A very interesting city, very diverse and quite different to other cities. We went in two days while we were there. The first day we were lucky enough to see the Golden Gate Bridge without fog shrouding it and it was an impressive sight, the next day though it was shrouded by fog. We rode one of their cable cars and had to queue for an hour to do so. The city has very distinct areas, from ridiculously wealthy to people living on the streets, and everything in between. It had some great architecture and some not so great, it has hilly streets and it has Lombard Street, both have to been seen, crazy. We had hoped to go to Alcatraz, but when we went online to buy tickets we found that they were booked out for three weeks! We couldn't work that into our schedule. We did the Hop on Hop off bus deal while we were there and did one of the walks through China Town, it certainly is a city with a checked past and an interesting history. Before we left San Francisco we rode some of the coast just to the north and went over one of the nearby mountains, it is an area with lots to explore, that is for sure.