CnC: Alone Through the Mountains- 338 miles

Another day, more great riding and more great people.

We breakfasted with jack in Bishop CA and left him there awaiting his trailer wheel. He had plans to visit a couple of local attractions to while away the day.

Fuelled up and headed north on US395. What a great road this is. It runs between two mountain ranges. The Sierra Nevada is on our left and is currently snow-topped. A lot more than when were here last time.

We pulled up at a scenic lookout and another car also stopped. The couple got out and introduced themselves. Wayne and April used to live in Oakey, Qld while he taught Aussie troops to fly and saw our flag on the trailer. They live in Reno and have insisted we visit them on our way back through in a few weeks. This land has some great people.

On their advice, we took the Mammoth Lakes detour for a scenic drive through the town and down a pine tree bordered road. Nice.

Back on 395 and we began to recognize all the places we knew. We crossed over in to Nevada - it is always easy to know when you enter Nevada, there's a casino straight away.

Stopped for a quick bite at a Target store and also picked up a couple of camp chairs and a few more cooking utensils. Some headcold tablets for Charleen as well. She is slowly improving but all the changes in altitude can hurt her ears.

Interesting to note that Mt Kosciusko, Australia's tallest, is 7310 feet. We have been above that altitude each day since we began this tour. In between there have been quite a few sharp drops and for Charleen it is like airline travel with a headcold - not nice.

After our shopping spree we continued through Reno, staying on the freeway and enjoying the opportunity to travel at the speed limit. For some strange reason, California limits all vehicles traveling with a trailer to 55mph (88kph). Doing so is actually quite dangerous as the regular traffic wants to go well above the posted limits. We queried a policeman in Bishop and he said it would be Ok to go a little faster so long as the trailer does not sway. Ours doesn't. But friends have told us the CHP are merciless on the rule. We'll just be careful.

Back in California again, we finally turned off our old friend 395 and headed west on Hwy70 through farming country and pine forests. Then we started to drop in altitude again and the running got twisty again. Good fun riding although the trailer makes the Goldwing handle a bit differently. It doesn't back off as much on throttling off and the pushing trailer tries to stand the bike up, making the rider work that little bit harder.

We made a right turn on to Hwy89 and followed a small creek for miles. Again, more twists and turns, the reason we ride bikes, so we were in motorcyclist heaven.

It was getting a little late and we decided to take a motel for the night to give Charleen a chance to keep warm for a night and get a good start in the morning.

Headcold or no, she still got some great piccies.