California in the sunshine... oooh yeah...
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| How big is that tree??? |
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| Last nights camp fire... |
We set off from the Albee campsite this morning & picked up the southbound Avenue of the Giants, down to a small town with an organic cafe that served great coffee & cakes. Once breakfast was done we headed south for some more fun in the trees & the fab road that wound through them, I get the impression that this bit of roa used to be the 101 when it made it's name as a biking heaven road. We carried on south to where the 1 joins the 101, pulled off to get the photo of Kevin & I under the 'Drive Through Tree', then got into some serious playtime as the bends just kept on coming... This road easily rates up there with the Cherohala, the Dragons Tail in the States & Hartside Pass & the Cat & Fiddle in the UK, plus it has the added bonus of dropping to the Pacific for a fab ride next to the sea... shame it was a cloudy day for us but hey that's the weather!!
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| Organic coffee anyone?? |
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| A lovely British couple we met on their RTW trip |
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| The coast just before Fort Bragg |
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| Fab 4x4 camper van we saw on the coast. |
We followed the 1 until it joined the 128, which took us into wine country & had some seriously good bendy sections, nice, flowing & fast, just what the doctor ordered after the cold & windy temperatures of the coast!
We ended up in the town of Healdsburg, which is at the northern end of the Napa Valley & about 70 miles north of San Francisco, it's a cool little town which is clearly used to tourism & catering for the well heeled class of folk, so we're only here because Kevin is a 'well heeled' sort of a guy. We've had some very nice dinner in a superb restaurant, the Cafe Lucia, a Portuguese influenced place, topped off with a couple of very strong beers in the local brewery pub the Bear Republic... There was even a bunch of local bands playing in the town square - a very cool place to spend an evening...
So tomorrow, Kevin leaves us to head to Sacremento & his sisters place for a family catch up, Geoff & I are thinking of heading to the coast for a few days & doing some day trips in to San Francisco to get our bearings & see the sights, so not entirely sure where we'll end up... only thing certain is we have a few days left in the US & we want to see some sights like the Golden Gate before we have to hand the bikes over to our shipping agent....
Hey ho, it's almost time to go home & resume a normal life, whatever that is???
Have fun all...
