Day 12

I could throw a lot of adjectives at Day 12 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour, but none of them would do justice to the ride. Looking out the window at dawn I saw an enormous cat behind the hotel. Deer grey with a long black-tipped tail, it jumped at least six feet straight up into a tree. I kept looking for things around it to get a sense of scale - it looked to be 30 inches tall at the head, and over 4 feet long, which either makes it an enormous tabby or a tiny mountain lion. We spent some time washing off the week of grit we picked up in the Mojave and industrial sections of California, then happy to put the 7-lane highways behind us we headed out of Stockton on Route 88. Go get something to write with, because Route 88 and 89 out of California are two must-see scenic byways, and you should circle a date on your calendar now. Route 88 rises out of California on the spine of a mountain ridge, undulating up and down and winding back and forth through towering pines and the tallest cedars I've ever seen; so fragrant you'd swear you've got a hamster in your helmet. On the left and right, marching off into the distance, are identical ridges covered with the same stately trees, and I thought it looked like a great place to search for Bigfoot. Despite some of the towns being named "Deer This" and "Deer That", there was no browse line on the cedars - their branches extended all the way to the ground, which I've never seen before. In the northeast, deer love cedar and they'll eat every sprig they can reach. Maybe California deer prefer Starbucks... As we were winding through some of the sharper turns, we were passed by an oncoming self-driving car, the roof-mounted lidar unit spinning like crazy. That's a great place to try them out, but I'd have my hands on the wheel if I was the test pilot. We passed through several parks on Day 12, Los Padres, Ponderosa, and El Dorado among them, and we saw the first snow of the trip high on the north-facing flank of some of the peaks in the latter. At the end of 88, we turned onto 89 to make our way up the west coast of Lake Tahoe, and that was the high point of the trip so far. That road was made for scenic viewing, and the lake is alternately alongside the road or seemingly a thousand feet below. Some of the turns are so tight they're rated as "10 mph", but I don't think I dared to go that fast. Approaching them from below, coming up a steep grade, and not seeing any barrier on the outside of the turn more solid than sky makes for a significant pucker factor, and I think I left a permanent crease in the seat on at least two of them. We carried on through Truckee and Donner Pass to end up in Reno, Nevada, and checked into the Silver Legacy casino on the advice of a storekeeper we'd befriended back in Lake Tahoe. I can't recommend that route highly enough, and if you can't get the chance to drive or ride it, take the chance anyway. Onward and upward.













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