While I am uploading the all the pictures to photobucket, I can start our ride report. We had some distance to ride before we met all the other riders that our friend ToeCutter had assembled for our ride. We could have got there in just over 206 miles, but we went the 289 mile route instead!
Leaving from Orangevale, we took route 16 to Hwy 49. For all you non historian types, this is named 49 because of the gold rush 49ers. It traverses the lower altitude mountains of the Sierra from North to Central California. Simply put, this road rocks and if you want a great motorcycle vacation, you could plan it around 4 days on 49 and an extra day with OrangevaleFJR's BBQ and some special gems I can show you around these parts. Yup, that is a limited invite (meaning if we have guests every week I'll be in trouble!).
That said, to get to 16 you have to take Latrobe Road off of US 50. Here are some shots of Latrobe. Here is the one where you leave the developed areas, climb this hill, then drop into a beautiful valley. The feeling of climbing this hill is of leaving urban living behind and it's a good feeling.
You are in the foothills of the Sierra and in the Spring, these hills are green and the trees have new leaves. Even the old oak trees.
Upon descending into this valley, there is a creek. Deer Creek. The railroad bridge reminding us of busier days in these parts when gold ore was chugging along behind smoke billowing steam engines.
To understand the love of this green, perhaps you should look at shots of this area in July when all the grass is brown from lack of rain and 90+ heat. Now, the grass is green, flowers are in bloom and the creeks and rivers are either full, or flooding. Some areas such as Colorado where I grew up are brown in the winter and green in the summer. The opposite is true of this region of California.
Latrobe does offer some high speed sweepers that are very fun.
more to come
