Due to the extreme heat experienced yesterday when coming down off of the mountains around Lassen National Park, I decided to hotel it last night.  A bonus was that the hotel had high-speed access! I’m up and out the door by around 8:30a this morning – and am now writing in the journal at about 8:15p.  I ended the riding day about 7:30p and have been setting up camp and just relaxing for the last 45 minutes or so. 

I start the day off with the decision to take State Route 36 to the Pacific Coast – it was really a toss up between 36 and 299.  The Pashnit site (a must if you are considering a California roadtrip – www.pashnit.com) recommends both.  The folks from the NorCal regional board here suggested 36.  I mentally flipped a coin and decided upon 36 – in hindsight, a good idea.  Route 299 is where the Mt Shasta fire is – I heard from another biker today that there is a lot of smoke on 299.  One of the guys in the NorCal board not only suggested 36, but suggested that I be very careful and not get ahead of myself and ride right off the road.  After having traveled this route, I completely get what he was trying to say.  I can’t say the LT went airborne during this part of the trip, but it was dang close.  So I’m cruising down Route 36 and what do I discover? A huge piece of wood – something like 30x12x4” lying in the middle of the road.  It couldn’t have been in a worse place – in a blind spot on a curve right at the end of a few fast switchbacks.  There’s no question that I would have taken a spill if I had hit it.  The only reason I didn’t hit it is because it was in the other lane.  I found a place to turn around and went back and DX’d that piece of wood.  Man.  Speaking of taking a spill, it’s certain that a lot of folks, bikers and cagers alike, have taken spills on Route 36.  I lost count of the number of times that I saw skids marks headed right over the side of the road.  It would be comical if I didn’t think that some of those people are probably dead – there were hundreds of curves that had a sheer drop-off of at least 300-500 feet.  No guardrails, no safety net.  I wish I could have gotten more pictures today, but riding demanded all of my attention!