Day 15: San Diego, CA

It's been a while since I've had a chance to spend some time updating the journal.  When I left Sacramento and headed for Turlock I took highway 16 east, then highway 49 south through the foothills of the Sierras.  Amador county is a perfect picture of golden rolling hills, dotted with huge green Oak trees and huge red tail hawks swooping above in the clear blue sky; it's the exact picture in my mind when I think of California as the Golden State.  I spent the night in Turlock with my friend Tim.  We stopped by to see his brother Tommy and his three boys that I haven't seen in about 5 years, then had some cheeseburgers and hit the rack.

I woke up early knowing I had a long drive ahead of me.  Stanislaus county smells like cows, but I made good time and before long I reached Visalia and headed east toward Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Forrest.  I missed a turn and didn't realize it until I reached an enormous lake that wasn't supposed to be there.  So I turned around and found the right road and headed south.  A few minutes later I missed another turn and ended up riding past Rocky Hill, a mound of dirt and rocks a couple hundred feet high covered in petroglyphs that's been used by local tribes for various ceremonies for centuries.  So after my second scenic detour I got on the right road and headed straight up in the Sierras.  If it weren't for the horrific road surface, it would have been the greatest stretch of twisties I've ever seen.  Unfortunately, I was too intimidated by the lumpy  road covered in sand and loose gravel to really push the corners, but it was a beautiful ride and I made it out alive, which I guess is what's most important.

The southern end of Sequoia National Forrest in the south Sierras is amazing.  Absolutely astounding.  Perfect road surface, perfect corners, third- and fourth-gear driving the whole way up the mountain.  It's like the Thunder Mountain ride at Disneyland, except it's real and a lot more fun.  I was going to camp at the south end of Lake Isabella, but made it there around 2:30 in the afternoon decided to keep going to Ridgecrest.

About an hour later I was in a tiny town at the northern edge of the Mojave Desert called Inyokern, about 15 minutes from Ridgecrest.  After a brief rest, and talking to the locals for a few minutes I decided that I could make it all the way to San Diego by the end of the day.  The Mojave Desert is unbelievably hot, even in May.  The northern end of the desert is beautiful and mostly pristine, then gradually is cratered with small towns mostly populated by dead and rusting cars and tractors as you go south.  By the time you reach the southern edge of the desert it's a hot, depressing mess of sprawl.

I reached San Diego around dusk, which is when the city is really at its most beautiful.  It's a bit like Las Vegas in the daylight, but not nearly as forlorn and desperate.  It was another long day, twelve hours on the road, and I was completely exhausted by the time I finally got off the bike.  The last two days in San Diego have been fun and relaxing.  I've been here several times before, but always on work trips or as a tourist.  This is the first time that I've had a chance to hang out with the locals and experience the city as its residents do to some extent.