LA to SF, with a slight misdirection...

After a late farewell, a blog post, packing and some laundry done I departed from my friend's place in Huntington Beach up the valley to Pleasanton, CA in the bay area.  The trip was to be fairly straight forward and mostly boring.  I would go up I-5 and turn on 580 into Dublin/Pleasanton.  This was the less scenic route.  I wanted to save time, though, quite honestly, if I were to do this with someone else, I would be making it a two day trip on the coastal route.

The road was fairly boring.  I listened to my music heading up I-5.  The scenery was interesting, but not too exciting, and I focused on gas mileage and not being too bored. My main concern was finding someplace that I could get In-n-Out for lunch along the way.  After miles of this, I reached Fresno.

Wait, Fresno? Fresno is not in I-5.  Never has been.  And apparently I missed that fact when riding along and somehow ended up on 99.  So I just add maybe 30 miles onto my trip up to Pleasanton.  Another 70 and you could have an argument that I should have taken the coastal route for sure.  I did manage to see an amazing sunset over Fresno though, for which I pulled over and took a picture.

But I hopped right back on my bike, fueled up, and trudged the rest of the way into Pleasanton.  Ben had a spot for me laid out in his living room and I was pretty excited to get off my bike, as the long segments have been starting to take their toll.