We pulled over at a rest area and met a great couple, Steven & Maureen from Genoa on their way to Seattle. Steven was a police sergeant from San Francisco. He gave me his business card and said that if I ever had any problems in San Francisco to show the police the card and say that "we knew each other really well"!
After stopping for lunch at Susanville we came on to Hwy 44 and it became the best of rides as we encountered about 100kms of riding through Lassen National Park. There was minimal traffic, the air was cool and the road surface was fantastic. There were lots of sweeping bends that you could take at speed. I switched on cruise control and just enjoyed the experience.
This experience was contrasted however by a near miss! Not far from a place called Hat Creek a guy in an old pick up coming towards us decided it would be an intelligent thing to try overtake a truck on double yellow lines going up a hill. Thankfully I could react in time (thank you Harley Davidson for ABS brakes!) and still managed to give the driver a 'friendly wave' as he cut in front of the truck coming towards us and sailed on past. It was a reminder that you need to have a different 'mindset' when riding a motorcycle than you do a car. Basically you need to treat every other driver like they are driving blind and are brain-dead.
Hwy 44 became Hwy 89 and we came to our stop for the day - the quaint alpine community of Mount Shasta. Mount Shasta is one of the largest peaks in California and is an active volcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County. The community is a base for fishing, tramping and skiing.
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