Day 10: To the coast!

I'm in California, where its always warm and sunny!...Or not...



I would have thought it would be warmer and nicer today but apparently its not. Cloudy and about 13 degrees is what I woke up to. Oh well, at least I get to see the Pacific Coast Highway today!



A couple of days ago when I was staying with Clark and James, they told me that the Pacific Coast Highway was closed. In the hopes that it wasnt, I still headed that way.



At first, I got to the coast and I thought...oh okay, its just another beach but as I rode along, it started to get better. The road along the coast got twistier and higher so that you could see a lot more of the coast. It was beautiful.



As I progressed, I started seeing some road closed signs. Either way, I was going to go as far as I could. When I finally got to the "closure", there was a construction worker there holding a "stop/slow" sign. Hah, they just said it was closed to divert traffic I thought. They let me by and I enjoyed more of the heavenly road.



I rounded a curve and to my surprise, there was an unmanned road closed sign with a barrier going all the way across the road. Bummer. I guess this is where the fun ends. Just when it was getting good. Oh well, I tried my best and I have no regrets. Quote: William Hung.



Since there are not many roads leading from the Pacific Coast Highway back inland, I had to backtrack and head back to the main highway.



My goal was to get to Carson City which is near Reno, Nevada by sundown. Most of my afternoon consisted of long straight highways. It was late afternoon when I got to the bottom of the mountains between California and Nevada. It was getting cold but I was too lazy to take the wires for my heated gloves out from my luggage bags. It didnt look that far on the map...oh boy was I wrong.



The mountain passes got really high to the point where it was snowing pretty hard. Snowbanks were piled at least 6 ft high, I knew this wasnt going to be good. Sunlight was also disappearing and getting caught out in the mountains in darkness was not something I wanted to deal with.



I picked up the pace since I didnt see a cop all day and the roads were relatively predictable. As I rounded a curve, I saw a Sheriffs patrol car parked on the side of the road. Crap I thought. I passed him pretty fast since I didnt see him until the last minute but he didnt bother coming after me. About 5 minutes later, I was coming down a hill and another Sherrifs patrol car was coming the opposite way and lit the cherries. Busted.



Before he could turn around, I pulled over, turned off the bike and waited.



Cop: The reason why I stopped you was for your speed

Me: I was going pretty fast, I know. I'm just really cold and wanted to get out of the mountains before dark.

Cop: License and registration please



The first sheriffs patrol car that I passed earlier arrived and they started talking. The cop comes back to me...



Cop: So you came from Ontario huh?

Me: Yup.

Cop: What are you doing here?

Me: Just seeing the sights of America. Its a beautiful country.

Cop: Thats awesome.

Me: It was an amazing experience so far.

Cop: Well just slow it down. I dont want to be dragging you out of the trees down the road.



Anyhow, I took his advise because I knew that if I got stopped again in the same day, they're not going to be as easy on me.



Eventually, I made it to Carson City where I got a place to stay. No more mountains, no more cold. What a relief.