South of Sunnyside

I’ve often heard Fresno touted as a hub for day trips to other destinations: Yosemite; L.A. and the Bay Area; Pismo Beach and the Central Coast. While the main artery heading north or south (HWY 99) isn’t exactly scenic, the side roads heading east and west can be.

As we describe our city to others, it’s not just the proximity to other locations that should be highlighted; the routes to those locations might just be the best part. I offer an example:

This weekend about half of our church gathered at a campground in San Luis Obispo. Kim couldn’t come until after work on Thursday, so a friend and I decided to ride our motorcycles up earlier that day. We set out shortly after sunrise, with a plan to travel the back roads.

HWY 41 isn’t very exciting, so we turned off in Lemoore to head west on HWY 198. The warm colors of the fields highlighted by the morning sun, against a greyish-blue mountain range and overcast sky, were dramatic and beautiful.

We stopped for breakfast at Harris Ranch, and then continued west for a few miles past Coalinga, deciding to “test” a road that had no name and didn’t show up on my Google map (it was on a printed map, however). We climbed for about 10 miles up a winding road, averaging about 15 MPH, overlooking valleys and rolling hills from about 3,400 feet up. And the then pavement ended.

For the seven-mile descent we braved dirt and gravel, only to land in a valley just north of Parkfield, the earthquake capital of the world. We crossed over the San Andreas fault, pulled into town (population 18), and stopped at the inn. Nothing was open, but a passing resident stopped to take our picture in front of the water tower.

From Parkfield we took a different road west to San Miguel; I’ll have to return here just to visit the mission. We took HWY 101 down to Paso Robles, stopped for malts at Fosters Freeze, then headed further west to catch the PCH into San Luis Obispo. All in all, the trip was right at 200 miles, with gorgeous views and almost no traffic.

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