Day 13: Alturas CA to Nevada City CA

Alturas CA to Nevada City CA - 340 Miles

We started our day hoping to make our way out of Alturas, west on 299, and then south on Hwy 89 thru Lassen National Park. Those plans were nullified by the Park Fire. More about that to come.

First - the videos from yesterday's ride ! Finally got to a hotel that has technology invented in the last 10 years and could upload :-)

Alice riding Hwy 20 in Oregon (2 mins):



Kate riding Hwy 20 in Oregon (2 mins):


Lake Abert in Hwy 395 in Oregon (1:26):


Now back to today's ride...

We checked the road conditions prior to leaving this morning to make sure there were no road closures on our route. All highways checked out OK - no closures. 

But CalTans screwed up when they reported Hwy 89 open with no closures -- 89 goes thru Lassen National Park, and the entire park was closed.

So we had to take some detours to get around the park.

But before we even got close to the park, we had to drive thru about 50 miles of VERY smoky conditions. Visibility was awful, and the smoke very thick.

I pulled these pics of the Park Fire from the internet...





One of the detours we took was on Black Butte Road, which was more like a goat trail than a road. It was remote, rough, and recently also had a bad fire rip thru the area, and we passed multiple large fire personnel dealing with the aftermath.

The start of Black Butte Rd:


One of the huge CalTrans trucks that was part of the fire cleanup on Black Butte Rd:


The rest of the ride was 75 mph on freeway...yawn. But I did get some nice video of 299 & 36 below.

We got to our hotel in Nevada City around 2:30, showered up, and walked into town. Our hotel is adorable.

We are in room 3.5 lol....






We had a quick beer at McGees - it was 95 degrees and we were thirsty after all the heat and smoke:





On to dinner at the Three Forks restaurant in town - highly recommended ! The porter was outstanding.





There is a park in town that honors the history of the California gold rush and the tooling that made it all happen. Fascinating the things that were invented to support the miners.

Pelton Water Wheel:



Five Stamp Mill:



Hydraulic Mining Valve:



Downtown Nevada City:


Some lovely flowers in someone's front yard:




Now for some videos....

Hwy 299 (1:15)



Black Butte Road (1:48):



Hwy 36 (18 seconds):



Our route was so messed up I couldn't even map it. But here is the ride we were supposed to take:



Tomorrow we head down Hwy 49 to Mariposa !










Comments

  1. Jennifer BryceAugust 9, 2024 at 10:12 AM

    Wow, the adventure continues! From the sublime to the inferno and back again!

    ReplyDelete

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