Into the Valley of the Giants. Now this is a big tree.

We met Bill and Frank during the ride through the valley. They flew in from CT to drive their vintage car in the Seattle to San Diego Historic Car Rally. There were about 50 classic cars coming through. Everyone enjoyed the ride.

There are hundreds of these huge trees in northern Calf. I can’t imagine what the first settlers thought when they came upon them.

This was the largest tree we saw. There were a couple of trees that you could drive through but we kept on our route to the coast and didn’t see them.

In addition to the huge trees the ride was fun with the road twisting and turning through the trees. The road was heavily shadowed because the trees are so massive they block the sun even at high noon.

To give you some perspective the downed tree is over four feet across. Most of the big trees are 600 years old. There was one tree that was recorded at 2,000 yrs old.

We left the Valley of the Giants and rode down RT. 101.

We ran into a couple of experienced riders at Boomers Saloon where we stopped for lunch. I had a burger and fries. John had a giant steak sandwich.

John’s new acquaintance is a hard core rider. You will notice his shirt which is awarded by the Iron Butt Association for riding 1,000 in one day. Flip has crossed the country 8 times and received the recognition of 1,500 miles in one day. that is crazy.

We talked about great rides and Flip recommended we turn right at the town of Willits and ride route 20 to Fort Brag and then ride the Pacific Coast Highway (Rt One) as we go south toward San Francisco

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Rt 20 was awesome with smooth banked turns going up and down the mountain between Rt 101 and Rt 1. After 32 miles of constant twist and turns our hands and arms were fatigued. At the end of the road we were tired but we had these stupid looking smiles on our faces. Mike,Tony, and Ken know what I am talking about. Oh and as we came to the end of Rt 20 we turned left onto the PCH.

The PCH was just as challenging with even more winding around the mountain and cliffs.

To get scale notice the cars on the road which are hugging the water. The PCH has high jagged cliffs on one side and water on the other. There are very sharp turns as the road hugs the coast line. This is a fun ride. That is unless you get behind a camper.

By the time we reached the Golden Gate bridge the fog had rolled in. We missed the clear view by about 20 minutes.

Here we are after the toll. You can’t even see the bridge through the fog.

The fog horn was activated. We stayed in a near by hotel and could hear the horn most of the night. At least we know it has a purpose.

John calculated our trip miles. We have covered 4,071 miles. Tomorrow we are looking forward to riding over the Oakland bridge and travel to Oakdale to visit my sister and her family.