It was getting close to 9:30 in the evening and we were having a wonderful time. We had long ago finished dinner and dessert with Bob Casagranda and his wife, Pat, and were in the process of telling just one more story. Bob and I had been in the Navy together, forty years ago where we served aboard the USS Walton. We had not seen each other since. You would never have known it from the conversation. It was like he had just come back to the ship from liberty and we were telling stories from the beach.

This was a perfect ending to a perfect day. Thirteen hours before, Linda and I had started our 11,000-mile "retirement" trip around the U.S from Santa Clara, CA (photo 1). We had wanted to take a scenic road that we hadn't been on in a while and one that would be fun on a motorcycle. With that in mind, we took SR 4 East from IS 99, riding through some fine scenery in the process, to SR 89, where we turned north towards Lake Tahoe. It had been a grand ride and a fine choice.

Hwy 4 East heads out through the San Joaquin valley and is pretty standard central valley fare until you get to Calaveras County where the farm country starts to give way to the Sierra foothills and you enter the Gold Country. It's called the Gold Country because during the 1850's, every Tom, Dick, and Mark Twain who wanted to get rich, and that was a goodly number, covered these small towns and streams, looking for the precious yellow metal. Most went broke, many stayed, and California became richer for their efforts. Our first stop was Angel's Camp, the site of Mark Twain's story about the jumping frog contest. If you haven't read it, do so, and I won't give away the ending.

We pulled into Angel's Camp just about noon and decided to get some lunch and see some of the historical sites (photos 2, 3, & 4). Right off you notice that this little town is trying to hang on to its history and have laid brass "frog" inlays into the town sidewalks (photo 5). This one is of the 1939 winner, but the various years' winners are mixed all along the street.

We found a local café with the not-so-original name of Gold Frog, which happened to be located in the old bank (photo 6), which was a pretty original idea. I don't think I've ever eaten in a bank before. After lunch, we noticed a nice red roadster conversion (photo 7) across the street, which seemed to be part of a number of old cars that were in town.

Hwy 4 takes you through Murphy, another historical town for many of the same reasons as Angel's Camp, and then you get into some serious riding country (photos 8 & 9). There are a host of high-speed sweepers located in the middle of some of California's celebrated granite mountain scenery; the day was off to a great start.

When you're out on local backroads, it's not unusual to see lots of Harleys, since they are America's favorite. Today, we kept passing BMW's of one flavor or another coming at us. There were enough of them for me to wonder what was driving them west. Linda reminded me that BMW had a rally this weekend in Tahoe. From the looks of it, they had a good turnout.

Somewhere above Murphy, the road narrowed as it started past several small mountain lakes. We pulled into a day use area at Alpine Lake for something to drink and met several other bikers or wanna-be bikers. One of the nice things about riding a motorcycle across country is the people you meet. After telling our story and getting encouragement from our new acquaintances we continued east where the speed limit got slower while the scenery got even better. We continued to climb towards Ebbett's Pass at 8730 feet, exchanging one spectacular view for another. The Sierra's hold a host of small lakes, scattered like so much jewelry around the high country (photos 10 & 11).

I had allotted about four hours to get to Tahoe, but SR 4 turned out to be much slower than I remembered. We finally reached the junction of SR 4 and SR 89 and turned toward tonight's lodging. Bob and Pat were waiting for our call at their home in Carson City, NV so they could join us for dinner. SR 89 takes you around the western side of Lake Tahoe, and this means some great views of the crown jewel itself. I stopped for a shot of Emerald Bay and the surrounding countryside (photos 12 & 13). What a great spot.

A little after five, we pulled into the Cottage Inn, a place of rustic cabins located on the shores of Lake Tahoe just south of Tahoe City (photos 14 & 15). A night at the Cottage Inn was special because it was a gift to Linda from her friends and colleagues when she retired in February of 2002. We were just now getting to use it. What a great way to spend our first night on the road.

After a quick call, Bob and Pat came racing over the mountain to join us and in the process, got a ticket for speeding. This was the beginning of an expensive night for Bob. Not only did he get a ticket, but he grabbed the tab for dinner as well. What a shipmate. Thanks Bob & Pat (photo 16).

After our new, old friends left, we sat and grinned and asked, "Can it get much better than this?" I don't think so, but we're going to try. We've still got about 60 days to go.

Today's Route: Leave Santa Clara, CA on local roads to IS680N to IS580E. IS580E to SR120E to IS99N to SR4E. SR4E to SR89N to Tahoe City, CA