Cycling on the sunny side of the MoonBack to the home pageIt was 1993 when Irene and I decided that it was time to move..... really move... to another country that is. With the stuff we had to arrange for immigration, work, housing and starting life back over, we had one dream that needed to be fullfilled. A cycletour through "indian-country". The planned tour came down to about 2700 miles (yeah, not the shortest route) from San Fransico, California to Santa Fe, New Mexico. According to any book you read about this area there is no good time to travel through this region by bike. By the time the mountain passes open, and you won't freeze to death anymore at night, it will be too hot to cross Death Valley and Southern Utah. So we decided to gamble a little, and take part of both, and we got both. Enjoy 12 pages of adventure. So, on April 12th 1994 we were thrown from the airplane at the San Fransico airport.
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Half Moon Bay
After the flight we have a little rough ride through the outskirts of San Fransico. European traffic is different than this, and it is clear that drivers here are less focused on bikers. Fortunately a friendly officer who also decided to have lunch at McDonalds gives us great information on how to get to Half Moon Bay and from there through San Jose to the east.
Later that day we pitch the tent at Half Moon Bay and walk on the beach to enjoy the sunset, the start of our trip, and we think.... a lot.... "What the hell are we starting?!?" Some other bikers on the campground, who are following highway 1, tell us the same thing, because the route that we will take will make us cross many mountain ranges and deserts. |
Mount Hamilton
From Half Moon Bay we take the Skyline Boulevard to San Jose. There we visit an AAA office to get some clearance about the road east of Mount Hamilton. According to one of our maps there is a road, according to the other there isn't. What is going on. The lady behind the counter looks at us, starts to sweat when she hears that we are on bicycles, and tells us that "Mount Hamilton is a real cardiac killer". We get a another map, and start our climb of Mount Hamilton. Beautiful area, with on the east side for our European standards the first feeling of "we are in the middle of no-where". |
Modesto
The road east of Mount Hamilton brings us to one very flat piece of land. Pan-cake flat, and the roads are constructed with the ruler in the hand. But after about 1 day the road enters hills in the landscape, and we have to move our handlebars again. We reach Modesto Resevoir, where we take a day off, do some laundry, hang around the lake, make pan-cakes (the landscape must have inspired us), and just enjoy being who we are. And then it is time to continue again, on our way to Yosemite National Park. go to page 2 |
