We rode out from San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge and headed south and east to Yosemite National Forest stopping in Modesto for food at the Firken Fox. We had booked a night at the Yosemite Bug Hostel where we stayed in a tent cabin, on arrival we fell into bed and slept off all the walking in SF only waking to have dinner and back to bed. The food there was amazing, I had the best burrito I have ever eaten.
In the morning we headed into the Yosemite National Park about 8 am, it had been raining lightly during the night but looked like it might clear. We rode carefully because of the wet roads. The Park starts on the foothills and rises up into hills where the roads are at a 10,000 ft elevation. We rode the foothills and marvelled at the huge rock bluffs and stopped to don more clothing as the temperature dropped as we headed up into the hills the weather began to worsen and by the time we hit 8,000 ft it was down to 45 degrees (7 celsius) it dropped lower as we rode higher. We didn't stop for pics as we were so cold and we seemed to be riding in the clouds as we had no views below us. The lowest reading I took a pic of was 43 degrees but am sure it went lower than that. Kent did a great job of riding on the slick roads and took us over to the other side safely.
On the other side we rode on to a town called Tonopah where we are at the moment, the weather was instantly warmer as we came down to 7,000 ft roads - long straight roads, one with little switchbacks that had us bouncing about. We had lunch Benton at the junction of 120 & 6, it used to have 10,000 inhabitants but no more but it had a great cafe and gas station. Route 6 runs from down San Diego way all the way to New Hampshire. We met some other bikers from Canada and had a drink with them when we got to Tonopah where they road on, we are staying at a Casino/Hotel we got the chance to roll for a free room, the bikers before us had had good luck and got 3 dice the same and a free room, Kent rolled 2x3's and a 2, so close!
Tomorrow we head out for St George across the Extra-terrestrial Highway joining routes 6 and 93 and skirting Area 51, if you don't hear from us again we have been abducted by aliens...
