Day 16–We slowed to Smell the Roses.

Some old guy and fellow rider recently told me that he only plans about 300 miles a day max so he and his wife could smell the roses while they travel. Well today, thanks to the weather at the higher elevations above 5300 feet, we did just that. I had a 400 mile loop laid out, but once we got about 25 miles northeast of Nevada City, it started to mist and then rain as we were climbing. I was not in the mood for this, so I just made a different plan on the fly and went with it.

Before we entered the rain levels, we had passed through a little town named Nevada City, Ca. It looked like it was taken out of the 1800’s and just placed in our current time. So I retraced our path and found a place to park the beast and it’s attachment, and set a foot to look around. We found a little place to eat tucked away in one of it’s corners called “New Moon Café”. Their niche seemed to be organic food because Lori and I both had Quesadilla with no meat. Click here for the About on their webpage. Once we were done with lunch, we walk some more around the town of 3000 residents, talked to about our motorcycle, our rig, and where we from and where we are going.

During our riding today, we actually got to ride some pretty nice twisty but they were just to short. We also got to ride in and about the snow that cover large portions of the side of the roads and most of the mountain tops. We reached our highest elevation of 5800 feet and the temperatures were right around 45 degrees. Then we head back to Sacramento which is only 25 feet above sea level and it was 75 degrees. So in 60 miles the temperature changed almost 30 degrees.

As we approached Sacramento the 6 lane Interstate started to come to a stand still, so I magically detoured off the Interstate and into a BMW dealership just to look around. I swear it was just like magic, teehee. I love my GPS. I also setup the GPS to stay off the Interstate and we took nothing but primary roads back to the hotel. It gives you a good look at the city you are staying, instead of blasting by on the Interstate system.

So we ended our day with just a small run just over 200 miles and we stayed dry and one of us stayed warm the entire ride. Lori doesn’t get on the bike now without the Gerbing Heated Suit plugged in ready to go. No Gerbings, no go!!

Tomorrow we move to Reno and I have 3 different routes laid out. I have once that swings westside of Lake Tahoe and into Reno and one that swings to the east of Lake Tahoe. The third route is a straight Interstate shot which only guarantees me that if it rains or snows that should be able to cross the mountain range between Sacramento and Reno. Depending on the weather reports I get in the morning, I will make my decision and go. What I see right now is just cold temperature until after 5 or 6pm and at that point it is suppose to start raining and depending on elevation, snow. I will only show my preferred route below.

One last notes to all the ladies tracking Lori here and may be wondering why you do not see her two cents worth. I setup her IPAD to allow her to post, but she reads my post after I put it up and just says, “you covered it, so I guess I do not need to post anything.”

Todays run was 213 miles, and our total is now 5771.

Click here for todays pictures:

Tomorrows route is pictured below:

The Picture below shows what we have completed and what we have left. The Red is complete and the Green is what is left.