Today may be a difficult day because it has to live up to the expectations we set for ourselves after yesterday's ride. It starts out in fine fashion with a morning walk by the beach along the western shore of Lake Tahoe (photos 1, 2, & 3), which is showing off in the morning shadows before we leave. We wander over to the dining room and have an enjoyable breakfast supplied by the Cottage Inn staff.

It's time to stop lolly gagging and get on with this ride, so after re-packing the trailer, we're soon away from the Tahoe traffic and into the pine trees of northern California. There is a slight bit of confusion on my part when SR 89 gets mixed up with Interstate 80, a route I do not want to take. After fumbling around and driving through the quaint little town of Truckee, I'm back on 89 where we belong.

Hwy 89 is truly a motorcyclist's road. It takes you through great tree covered valleys, points you along side various rivers and streams, and allows you to crank it up a bit for those high-speed sweepers we all enjoy. Along the way you pass through some small, but attractive little towns like Graeagle and Greenwood. I think I want to live here.

One of the down sides of summer travel, in the back roads of anywhere, is road construction. We got stopped several times and had to wait for the flagman to let us pass, but what a great place to have to wait. We were in a beautiful broad meadow with ranch houses off in the distance, tucked quietly under the mountains. Greens of all shades and hue make their home in these meadows, along with a variety of wildflowers and trees. Soon enough we are on our way again and were no worse for the wait.

At some point past Greenwood, state route 89 continues on through Lassen National Park while SR36 turns right to Chester, the new home of family friends Dee and Pam Cahill. We hook a right. After several calls we find them at their new building site, putting up the framing on their new home. Dee and Pam are building most of this themselves. They both took an early retirement and decided to escape the rat race of the Bay Area for the quieter climes of Chester, along the shores of Lake Almanor. A lovely lady if ever there was one. They had just had their new driveway poured on Friday and we arrived on Monday. We were the first vehicle to use it (photo 4).

I always admire those who can do for themselves. Dee is not a carpenter by trade but is a talented individual none-the-less, as the framing and detail work on his garage showed (photos 5 & 6). Dee and Pam pulled out all the stops to be hospitable. He got folding lounge chairs out of his new garage, offered us Chester water, direct from two underground wells that use the cold water tables from Lake Almanor as their source and is said to be 99 and 44 one-hundredths percent pure. Damn, I think I want to live here. I may not even have to buy a house since Pam and Dee offered to let us visit for as long as we wanted. Silly rabbit. That could cost them.

We reluctantly leave Dee and Pam, since they have lots of work to do, even if they are retired, and head up to "Polly's Potty" the name the locals give to the closest rest stop on the lake. It is a rather nice one with pleasant, if somewhat obstructed views, of Lake Almanor (photos 7, 8, & 9).

It's starting to get about 3:00 in the afternoon, and we still had miles to go before we sleep, or words to that effect. We head west on SR 36 for a fast two-hour ride to Red Bluff. There are more tree covered mountains to ride through before we get to the low country, and as we come leaning around one more mountain curve, we come across an undersized little meadow called, appropriately enough, Child's Meadow (photos 10 & 11). Here cattle grazed lazily, thinking they had a pretty good deal. These must be the cows they use in those California Cheese commercials where they are all contented and give good milk, which is responsible for the tasty California cheese, or so the ads would have you believe. Looking at these cows, I could believe the ads.

As we come down out of the mountains, the temperature gets warmer and the land gets drier (photo 12). and is littered with large boulders all over the hillsides. Linda and I speculate on how these boulders got here in the first place. I offered the glacier theory where receding ice left them behind but Linda points out that Mount Lassen is just over the hill and was within rock tossing range during any kind of major eruption. She's probably right but our conversation then turned to the commercial value of these medium to small size boulders. Sure enough, we hadn't gone another ten miles when we came across an enclosed flatbed truck filled with these boulders. I'm sure they ended up in some landscapers inventory somewhere in the Bay Area.

At long last, we see Interstate 5 up ahead and within a short period of time, we're in a local Travellodge for the night. Two perfect days completed. I surely like this retirement stuff.

Today's Route: Hwy 89 North through Truckee, Greenwood, Graeagle, Lake Almanor and Chester. Hwy 36 West to Red Bluff.