T’other Side Of The Mountains

 

From our Thousand Trails campground outside Cloverdale, CA, US 101 took us north today for a loop ride on the other side of the Mayacamas Mountains.  

Things to note in this pic:  the innovative rumble center line, the young grapevines and the dry brown grass.  With the onset of winter rains, the grass turns bright green and the grapevines will be bare.

Ukiah held two stops for us. 

This store owner had an appreciation for older bikes.

Did you know H-D made a scooter? 

Actually, there are two H-D scooters.

Knuckleheads

We’ve been seeing signs for these and decided to try them out.  Not bad, but McDonalds always had the best fries, so why try to fix what isn’t broken?

Large carvings across the street.  On the other side of the eagle is a huge bear.

In Ukiah we connected to CA 20 east and over the mountains to Lake County.  The first lake we encountered was the beautiful Mendocino Lake, birthplace of the Russian River.  The Corp. of Engineers created the lake by building a dam in 1958.

“…and forever in peace may she wave!”

CA 20 continued east then turned south along Clear Lake.  We turned south on CA 29 which traveled along Upper and Lower Blue Lakes.  These lakes were created when a landslide into Clear Lake pushed water into this valley.  The lakes are now spring fed.

Did this shot make you say “Huh?”  I think I zoomed in on the tight curve.

CA 29 continued along the east side of Clear Lake, but not close enough for a good look,

but then we found a roadside overlook of the south end of the lake in Lakeport.  Here we found the first roadside rest in Lake County that had a visitors’ center.  The nice lady inside provided us with excellent information about this unique lake.  We learned that geologists have determined that Clear Lake is the oldest lake in the New World.  Lakes and marshes have existed here for 2.5 million years but the lake as it is today is at least 500,000 years old.  The lake basin was created by Mount Konocti (kon nok tie—long i), a volcano.  This volcano did not erupt; the earth’s crust slowly sank to compensate for the magma that flowed out of this volcano thousands of years ago.  It still sinks about 1/4 inch each year.  Mt. Konocti is accessible from Kelseyville  by a four mile road leading to a three mile hiking trail to the top.

 

I think they waited to long to move this sail boat. This gives you an idea just how low this lake is right now because of the drought .

Just south of Lake Port we left 29 for CA 176.  Up and around we went

then stopped to see where we’d been.

The top of the ridge offered several good views of Clear Lake.  At the food of the far mountains is a good look at most of the lake.  The brown mountain on this side of lake I believe is Mount Kinocti which actually consists of five peaks.

CA 176 is a wonderful motorcycle ride across the Mayacamas Mountains.  The road has some uneven road surface, and some sand or dirt making some of the tight turns a little tricky, but for the most part the ride is a delightful roller-coaster ride. 

Drop straight down from the berm.

176 dropped us back into the Russian River vineyards valley on US 101.

In search of a Mendocino Valley pino noir for our Napa Valley kids, we stopped at this lovely vineyard just north of Hopville.

I picked it because we’d passed it on the start of our trip, and I saw a sign for at the end of our loop.

Stacie, was very welcoming and informative.  She explained that this area was formally used for growing hops for beer, but that it was discovered that it was better suited to grapes.  She patiently answered all of our questions about grape growing and wine production. 

After making our selection we let the Eagle follow the Russian River  back to the campground.

A beautiful ride under perfectly blue skies.

Louise and Duane