I headed towards Los Gatos, and rode up the aqueduct maintenance road to the Lexington Reservoir. At an hour after dawn on a Saturday morning, only a few people with desperate dogs were out walking. I arrived at the summit store, and picked up a snack before heading down through the lupine filled eureka canyon.

At the base of the canyon, I stopped at the Corralitos sausage factory and chatted with a wizened cyclist about his past trips. I continued through town, and soon reached the artichoke fields of the coastal plain around Monterey. The artichoke plants are a little taller than knee high, and at the top of each are two or three large artichokes, pointing upwards like a spiky blossom. Approaching Monterey, highway 1 turns into a freeway, and cyclists are prohibited; not what I would call free at all, particularly when forced to use a decidedly inferior sidepath.

I bypassed the tip of the Monterey peninsula, and rejoined highway 1 outside of Carmel. I stopped for a salmon and gorgonzola sandwich in town, and continued south along highway 1. The coast south of Carmel is much more rugged than the plains to the north. The road bounces over the flanks of the mountains and across streams. The bays are full of seaweed, seals, and the occasional otter. A few natural windows can be seen in the rock. Groves of cypress stand on the windiest points and provide privacy for the occasional house.

As the day waned, traffic thinned, and the last of the Carmel based day riders passed me heading north. I arrived at Big Sur, and looked up at the redwoods, hoping to see a condor, but was disappointed. I discovered that I had the hiker-biker site to myself, and settled in for the night.

Approaching San Simeon, the terrain leveled out and the tailwind picked up, allowing me to travel much more quickly. Lupines grew in the fields, and cattle grazed on them. Elephant seals appeared along the beaches, immediately adjacent to the road. A crowd watched the males fight over access to harems. I joined and watched as well.

At highway 46, I headed inland over the mountains, getting an excellent view of Morro Rock below. An unladen cyclist from Paso Robles overtook me, and slowed down long enough to assure me that there was lodging available there. I stopped for directions and water at the junction with highway 101, and reached Paso Robles where I found an inn.

The section of the central valley near Lost Hills is largely given over to the oil industry. Active fields had a well every thirty or fifty feet, and men with trucks could be seen installing new ones. The town itself is dirty and unpleasant, as though the owners of the oil fields had moved away, leaving an entirely uncaring and unhappy population behind. There wasn't even a light in the convenience store restroom.

I turned off highway 46, and followed back roads through almond groves and wheat fields towards Bakersfield. Many areas gave the impression of having never been farmed; these parcels contained sagebrush and trash. A mistake in reattaching my wheel after repairing a flat left the magnet on the wrong side to trigger my odometer. As a result, I didn't accurately measure the distance for the last 10 or 15 miles into town.

I found a hotel near the junction of highways 178 and 99 with an adjacent restaurant and settled in for the night. Around 3:00 in the morning, a half-nude drunkard awoke me by banging on the door, and I was obliged to call the front desk in order to be rid of him.

I soon began climbing through blooming orange groves, and stopped to chat with a pair of women who were inspecting the orange trees on horseback. The scent was incredible. One gray haired cycle tourist passed me in the other direction, and we waved to each other.

The road joined the Kern river, which promptly entered a narrow canyon. PG&E had half the road blocked off for repairs to the telephone lines, so I was obliged to wait twenty minutes or so in order to follow the pilot car up the canyon. The south facing slopes were dry and brown, but the north facing slopes were in full bloom. Herons, ducks, and herons populated the vegetation along the river. A medium sized hydroelectric project had numerous dams, electrical wires, and high-pressure pipes along the river.

I turned off the highway onto Kern Canyon Road and visited one of the many hot springs along the river. The forest service had apparently destroyed the swimming pools the day before I arrived, largely to prevent people from being exposed to bacteria living in the springs. A scalding trickle and debris was all that remained. Many century plants grew along the road, but few were blooming.

The town of Lake Isabella appears to be largely populated by retirees living in trailers. I didn't see much in the way of lodging available, but did find a grocer. I ultimately stopped for the night in a campground before reaching Walker pass. The attached bar gave me an opportunity to chat with the locals. The most loquacious of the bunch was a former uniform renter. All were retired and trying to live on a very meager income.

At the monument at the top of the pass, I put on an additional layer, and then quickly descended into the Mojave desert. Reaching highway 14, I headed south towards Red Rock Canyon state park. This section of the Mojave desert is full of what appear to be abandoned ranches and irrigation systems. From time to time, I would pass a small ghost town. My first attempt to find the park proved to be a wrong turn: I wound up following a motorist down a sand road from nowhere to nowhere. I realized my mistake when the motorist, who had also been looking for the park, turned around and asked me for directions. On my second attempt, I found the park - the most interesting part proved to be adjacent to the highway. The prime attraction at Red Rock Canyon consists of alternate layers of white ash and red lava, eroded into pillars and narrow canyons not unlike the badlands.

As the end of the day was approaching, I turned of the main highway hoping to find lodging at California City. Unfortunately, the town turned out to be a bedroom community for Edwards Air Force Base, and lacked either a campground or a motel. The population was entirely transient, and nobody seemed to know where anything was, or have the slightest interest in my unusual means of arriving in town. I was even approached by one man looking for a bicycle shop.

I continued on to Boron, where Borax is mined, and found the one motel in town. The windows had sand seeping around the edges, but I was glad to be out of the wind.

I took route 247 south out of town. The primary recreational activity in this area appears to be off-road motorcycling. Numerous people could be seen hanging around watering holes with their off-road motorcycles, and much of the normally scant vegetation had been killed.

I climbed a nameless and very windy 4000' pass, and then descended into Lucerne Valley. As is typical of towns in the desert, this one was surrounded by a region of abandoned houses. More surprising was the failed golf development on the playa adjacent to town. Shriveled up palm trees and a creaking old sign announcing the construction of a new resort greeted me to the populated area. To my surprise, there were two motels in town, both so off the beaten track that the Indians who have been buying up the independent motels had not yet found them.

Total distance so far: about 650 miles.

After descending to Onyx, I stopped at an Audobon Society festival to obtain water, and watched the hummingbirds visiting feeders at the visitor center. The purple throated costa's hummingbirds were astonishingly nonterritorial. One of the women there noticed my Finger Lakes Cycling Club jersey, and after a few minutes conversation, we discovered that we were both Cornell alumni.

I contued on to Kernville, where I bought food and inquired about the roads ahead. A resident informed me that the forest service roads through the mountains were officially closed due to snow, but that the snow had all melted, and it was merely a matter of an official not having taken down the sign. The north side of Isabella Lake is populated by an entirely different group of people than the south side. Instead of the destitute retirees I saw on my way out, the people were much younger. Whitewater kayakers were taking advantage of the melting snow to race down the Kern river.

I continued on to Fairview, where I found not only the expected campground, but a motel and restaurant as well. The restaurant served only excessively large steaks. The smallest weighed in at a full pound.

The higher elevation roads had snow alongside, but no ice or snow actually on the road. There was virtually no traffic other than a diesel broom crew cleaning the road before the official opening. The wildflowers proved even more amazing as I descended towards California Hot Springs.
At the first point with a good view of the central valley, I stopped to make a phone call, and discovered that I could not find my cellular phone or travelers' checks. I continued past the springs, and stopped for water at a saloon which had the brands of all the local ranches burned into the wood above the bar. I chatted with the barmaid, bought some food, and continued down the old stagecoach road, passing many of the ranches whose brands I had seen along the way.

Upon reaching Porterville, I had my unused travelers checks stopped, and my cell phone inactivated. I then continued north through the blooming orange groves to Exeter. The intervening towns appeared quite depressed; many of the shops had closed.

In Exeter, I found a motel, checked in, and unpacked my panniers. Well hidden inside, I found both my phone and my travelers checks, necessitating another round of phone calls. The motels in town, of which there were several, were suprisingly empty.

The terrain was largely flat, as is typical of the central valley. Nobody puts through roads in the hills when there is flat land along side. By keeping near the sierra foothills, I was able to avoid the headwinds which would have plagued me if I had headed north along a more western route. Aside from the Fresno suburbs I passed through, the whole land was planted with orange groves. At the end of the day, I climbed up to Millerton Lake. My first view of it was the enormous dam above town. Finding the campground took some time, as it was across the lake from town. Once found, the campground proved to be mostly empty, and a pair of common mergansers floated nearby.

Navigation proved complicated: my map showed names for all the roads, and these names would be used in towns, but outside of town, the road signs would indicate a number rather than a name. Naturally, these numbers were not marked on my map. I had to guess at my location every time I came to an intersection. Despite this, I managed to reach Coarsegold, where I purchased a local map, solving my navigation problem.

A local cyclist suggested that it might be more pleasant to take back roads to Mariposa. Doing so added considerably to the amount of necessary climbing, but improved the scenery immensely. As with most foothill regions in California, the raising of beef cattle is the major local industry. Numerous woodpeckers used the old wooden fence posts to store their acorns in, and one field had an old tumbledown stone wall running through it.

In Mariposa, I stopped at the chamber of commerce for lodging information, and learned of the hostel between Mariposa and Yosemite. I continued uphill, reaching the hostel at about the time I became tired. About half the people at the hostel were there for a NOLS EMT course, and many of the remainder proved to be vacationers from Europe.

The valley itself is astonishingly flat and narrow. On either side solid granite walls several thousand feet rise towards the sky, and Taughannock-sized waterfalls cascade down the cliffs. I stopped at the bottom of every major cascade. There wasn't time to visit the tops, but there was enough to stand in the spray and look up. I looked in every stream for an ouzel, but didn't see one.

At the end of the day, the attendant at the park entrance recognized me as the only cyclist who had ridden in with a load, and didn't bother to check my receipt. Upon reaching the hostel, I was sorely tempted to stay another night, but continued on to Mariposa, where I found a hotel room.

Lunch was a diner in town. Unlike my trip two years ago, I managed to pass through the nicer part of Merced this time. The difference is astonishingly large, equal or greater than that between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto.

I followed a railroad most of the way to Modesto. The terrain was largely planted with almonds, but the season for blossoms was long since past. I saw an aircraft museum along the road, with assorted old (and not so old) military aircraft. By the time I reached Modesto, I had two broken spokes, but was out of spares.

I found a hotel, and there was an all you can eat buffet, so I dined accordingly.

I reached Tracy around 11:00, and found a bike shop. I waited an hour or so for spoke replacement. The town itself is undergoing a construction boom, as people are evidently willing to put up with a two hour or longer commute in order to obtain cheaper housing.

With a freshly repaired wheel, I headed up Corral Hollow towards Livermore. The scenery changed from dry, brown, and filled with odiferous dairy farms to green with a few wildflowers mixed in. As is frequently the case, an ambulance passed by on its way to the off-road motorcycle park.

Livermore and Pleasanton suffered the usual excessive afternoon heat. After a quick stop for pastery in Pleasanton, I continued on to Calaveres and back into San José. I was overtaken by another cyclist on the climb past the Sunol Regional Wilderness, and he quite correctly commented that it wasn't just packing foam in my panniers.

I found myself traveling several miles per hour faster than had been my norm for the previous week during the final leg into San José, and arrived at my apartment just before dark.

Total distance: about 1280 miles round trip.

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