Greetings all from sunny Patterson, California. Located on the I5 corridor in central California about 60 miles southeast of San Francisco.
I left Garberville, CA about 9am this morning to sunny skies and drying pavement, but still a somewhat chilly 44 degrees.
Garberville is in the middle of this map, just above Benbow Lake. I kept chugging along through the remainder of the Redwoods, and noticed it was starting to warm up and seeing a lot more dry pavement while passing through Ukiah, CA. I continued southward on Hwy. 101 into Santa Rosa, and had to stop because I couldn’t believe what I was feeling. It was sunny and 60 degrees in central California today! Traffic was moderate, but uneventful today around the shopping mall areas, (yes, Californians also wait to the absolute last minute to finish their Christmas shopping obviously).
Santa Rosa mall traffic above.
I continued down Hwy. 101 into San Francisco and briefly into Berkeley, just to say I’ve been there. Typical traffic through the Bay Area. Four lanes of super-slab on all the major freeways, and everybody hangs in the left lanes. I stayed in the right-most lane and cruised along happily at 70mph.
Berkeley flats on University Ave. Lots of students and gangsta’s on the streets, but all very laid back.
From Berkeley, I cut east heading for I-5 and central California on my way to the Mojave Desert tomorrow. I forgot how arid central California is once you move away from any of the coastal towns.
I stopped briefly in Livermore, CA to hit a Starbuck’s and get pumped up on two hits of expresso for the push eastward. Yes, that’s arid desert land in the background, surrounding a very yuppie bedroom community.
I pushed on eastward across Interstate 580 to ride I-5 southward, and jump off of I-5 tomorrow to head up to the High Desert. I cruised down I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley for about an hour and decided to hole-up somewhere near the freeway because the sun was setting and the winds were picking up, (I also forgot about how windy it gets going through the I-5 corridor in central California).
Yep, pretty bleak riding through central California, and the scenery doesn’t change hour after hour. I can see why long-haul truckers go nuts driving through this stretch of highway.
Anyway, I’m heading eastward and upward tomorrow into the High Desert of Victorville, CA to see what it looks like today, (I was stationed there in the US Air Force back in the mid-eighties). Then, Wednesday, I head down to Los Angeles to hook up with my sister-in-law Colleen. Thursday to Baja.
I’m wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I’ll keep my reports coming…
Dave
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