13th September 2010



Mammoth Mountain
Post Office Flowers

We had quite a lot of sleep and did not wake up too early. I walked over to the post office and bought another $10 worth of stamps, in order to post the backlog of 10 postcards that I had built up. The queue and wait was about on par with UK post offices. For breakfast, we went back to the cafe, where we had dinner the previous night. I had 2 eggs, 2 rashers of bacon and French toast. That was a first for me. French toast is a thick, almost doughy, sweet bread. It is sprinkled with cinnamon and icing sugar (or the version I had was). For me, the sweet and the savoury didn't gel too well but I ate it all the same. Bill had two slices of toast. It goes without saying that we had plenty of coffee.

Tioga Pass

We were on the road by 10:15. We took the 395 North out of Mammoth Lakes. There was another gorgeous mountain range view, reddish in colour, but as I reached down to flick the go-pro camera on, I realised that I had not fitted it after breakfast .

We refuelled at gas station near the junction of the Tioga Pass road. We decided not to go via the Tioga road as we would have to pay $10 to get through the gates into Yosemite. We continued up the 395 for a short way before turning around. The satnav indicated that we'd have to do so many more miles by not using the Tioga Pass that we'd probably end up spending the $10 in fuel anyway.

Yosemite



Yosemite



As it turns out, it was a good decision. The scenery up the Tioga Pass road through Yosemite is amazing. The traffic was not so good but at least we weren't there at the weekend. We stopped to take photos at various points through our Yosemite journey. We stopped at a visitor centre along the way. There we had a chat with a dog owner, who thought that Tony Blair was the last UK Prime Minister. God knows how we got on to politics as it is neither mine or Bill's forte. Unfortunately there were lots of road works on the roads leading out of Yosemite and down to Oakhurst, not helped by a motorcyclist falling off of his bike at one point. We were sat still several times either waiting in traffic queues or for pilot cars. When we did get going, a lot of the road was marked with a solid line on both sides, so we were unable to pass the cars for a while. I remember a "No passing - next 26 miles" sign. And being mostly automatic cars, they continually braked on descents. All this sounds rather downhearted but, despite some of the days trials, we had a really good ride through Yosemite and the surrounding area. And once we got past all the cars on the descent to Oakhurst, the road became quite exciting.

We stopped at Starbucks in Oakhurst for a coffee and a free pastry. I booked a room at a Motel 6 in Coalinga, which was 102 miles away. We left Oakhurst at 16:20. The ride to Coalinga was probably our worst to date. It was very hot, busy, boring and, as we got near Coalinga, dirty too! Coalinga is situated in the heart of farm country. The roads reflect this; they were covered in dirt and the vehicles in front kicked up a cloud of dust. Still, we made good time and got ourselves that much nearer to the coast.

We got to the motel and checked in. It was amusing to see an A4 piece of paper sellotaped to the front desk. It showed pictures of Mosquitos, fruit flies and other beetle type insects, accompanied by the statement: "You may find some of these friends of nature in your room. As we are located next to farm land we have no control of this.". I jumped in the pool, which felt good after the sticky ride. I made the towel pretty black when I dried myself, what with a layer of dirt stuck to the sun lotion on my skin. I got dressed again and we went over to the nearby Denny's to take advantage of their value menu. I had chopped steak, green beans and mashed potatoes. The chopped steak wasn't steak and tasted like a greasy oversized burger. Bill had a cheese melt again.

We paid up and returned to the motel, where I wrote the diary. It is now 21:46. The bike odometer reads 48619, which means we have ridden 250 miles this day.