South Lake Tahoe & Sacramento, California

(January 15, 2017) On Thursday, June 16, 2016,  I rode from St. George, Utah to South Lake Tahoe, California. This was Day 7 of 17 on my cross country ride round trip from Cary, North Carolina to Bellevue, Washington. On Day 8, I rode from the Kampgrounds of America (KOA) site in South Lake Tahoe to San Francisco, by way of Sacramento. In this blog entry, I'm providing some images from my ride into Carson City, Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and Sacramento. I'll cover San Francisco and the Bay Area in a later post.

Carson City

Once I left the high desert of Nevada, I continued to follow US 50 (Lincoln Highway) into Carson City, the capital of Nevada. I've included a short GoPro video of my ride into Carson City so you can get an idea of what the area looks like.

South Lake Tahoe

The Lake Tahoe area is absolutely gorgeous and at more than 6,000 feet elevation chilly. That cool air provided for a comfortable night's sleep in my tent.

I did not take many still photos of the area as I was ending a long ride from St. George, Utah and needed to get to my camp site by dark. I tent camped on a nice spot next to a stream at the local KOA. However, I did get some video with my GoPro camera, which I provide below. All of these videos were captured as I rode on US 50.

I do want to add one comment here. I spent the evening at the KAO with one of the nicest couples I've ever met. The husband looked so much like Kris Kristoferson that I had trouble remembering his name--it was Jeff. His wife's name was Natasha. My sleeping bag got wet--my fault for not packing it in a plastic garbage bag--and they let me stand next to their camp fire for three hours holding it while it dried out. We talked the entire time. They even fed me dinner. They were also on a Harley and a 3-4 day ride from Orgeon and back. They helped make my trip even better than I had hoped or expected. I so appreciate kind, hospitable people. I hope to pay their kindness forward over and over.

Riding into South Lake Tahoe on my Harley - 1 of 5

 

Riding into South Lake Tahoe on my Harley - 2 of 5

Riding into South Lake Tahoe on my Harley - 3 of 5

Riding into South Lake Tahoe on my Harley - 4 of 5

Riding into South Lake Tahoe on my Harley - 5 of 5

Sacramento, California

Among the many state capitals through which I rode was California's capital Sacramento. As I collect Harley-Davidson pins from the states I visit, I stopped at the Harley-Davidson dealership in that fine city. I took a few photos outside the dealership before I realized the lens was dirty. This explains the poor quality of the larger image. (Click on the thumbnail image to the right to see.)

I took the advice of my friend John Hart and rode US 50 into Sacramento rather then the Interstate and that proved to be a great decision as the road is very scenic as it descends out of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

I've also included a video, below. Note that I mention the day is Thursday when it is actually Friday. That's one of the beauties of taking a 2-week+ ride: you can forget which day of the week it is!

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Here is a copy of the daily log for that day, which I had posted on Facebook:

Day 8 of 18 - Mike Uhl's Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) Ride 

(June 17, 2016) After a leisurely pace of breaking down my campsite and chatting with Jeff, the Harley guy who camped two sites over from me, I left South Tahoe, CA for Redwood City by way of San Francisco with a stop at the Harley-Davidson dealership in Sacramento.

I'm staying at the Sofitel San Francisco Bay Hotel in Redwood City. It's so upscale that I feel out of place. I feel like I should be in the Motel 6 a few blocks away. I've spent some time out front watching the people in their expensive cars pull up and have the doormen take their luggage and park the vehicles. Many of the people are speaking foreign languages, much of it Mandarin I suspect, though I am not able to discern different dialects of Chinese. There's a big event involving tweens. It's strange seeing so many 10-12 year olds dressed up and schmoozing like business people 30-40 years older than them.

California traffic (on I-80) lived up to its reputation. I rode only a little more than 200 miles today, but 99% of the time the effort required my full attention. I did not look around much nor take a chance to pull over and take pictures. Tomorrow morning, I plan to ride CA 84 to the Pacific coast and then CA 1 north into San Francisco. I hope to take lots of pictures and make a stop at the famous Alice's Restaurant near La Honda.

The plan for tomorrow afternoon is to meet my cousin Ray at the Harbor Court Hotel on Steuart Street around 1:00 p.m. I don't plan on riding more than 100 miles tomorrow.

Day 9 (Sunday) will be the pivotal day of the whole trip as I ride from San Francisco to Langlois, Oregon (just south of Bandon), where I plan to camp again. This will be a full immersion in the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) experience. I shall ride the PCH the entire way.

Day 8 Mileage Summary

Today's mileage = 213
Total trip = 3,251 (not halfway yet)

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As always, keep the shiny side up and pray for a short winter.

-The Long Rider