California is pretty cool. Admittedly SoCal does have a lot of douchenozzles mucking up their reputation some – but overall there is no state like them. California has contributed much to our overall prosperity and culture. And how can anyone not love Tahoe?

There are some naive posters above who fail to realize California generates more tax revenue and contributes more to the GDP than the bottom 40 states combined!

Get there fast because it won’t be there much longer.

I like Utah and Colorado more, beauty-wise…

Isn’t God amazing? 🙂

You left out the self obsessed people who live there and spoil it for everyone else.

We pray for them everyday and they really need them. Peace

i could happily do without california.

California, even with it’s problems, is great. I don’t care how expensive it is, I’d rather live there than Mississippi or Kansas or some other place like that.

Sell it to the Mexicans for 1 dollar. It will save us Trillions in tax dollars over the long run. I think for some reason the Mexicans want it?? Serves absolutely no purpose to hold on to it.

It truly is the land of fruits and nuts

No, not really but I’m not especially religious 😉

I do like Northern California a lot though, west of Redding are some fantastic roads through Trinity and out to the coast. North of Redding is the Dunsmir area, and that is gorgeous all the way up to the border, including Mount Shasta. Southeast of there you can hit the lava tubes at Subway Cave and Lassen Nat’l Park for a little geothermal action and some long, long views, and Burney Falls that President Roosevelt described as the 8th Wonder of the world. Still more south and east is Portola, one of the few places in the country where you can rent a locomotive. Heading back towards Highway 49, you can wind through old mountain towns from the gold rush days, find abandoned villages tucked back in the trees just a few hundred yards off the road. You might be fortunate enough to be hungry in Sierra City and have an awesome lunch by the waterfall at Buckhorn while looking up – and up and up – at Sierra Buttes.

If you continue on south on 49, maybe with just a diversion to Lake Tahoe, you’ll hit the heart of California’s gold country, including Placerville (formerly Hangtown after the execution of three men for shooting a Sheriff. Those men are now buried in the parking lot of Z-Pie, which is a good place to stop if you can manage to be hungry again after Sierra City).

Keep going south on 49 in the foothills of the Sierras and you’ll find Calavaras county, the railroad museum at Jamestown, Yosemite and King’s Canyon and the mountain redwoods – you could see the coastal redwoods when you were back in Trinity.

Pretty soon you’ll be in the Mojave, and you can jump on Route 66. This is the home of Fort Irwin and the 11th Armored Cavalry (Allons!). Barstow makes a great base for exploring the area around Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead. Just down the hill to the south is San Bernadino and LA.

If you run out west, you can hit Santa Barbara after a fun romp on the Pacific Coast Highway and up to Solvang – one of the best motorcycle museums in the country and some fantastic Dutch food.

further North is San Luis Obispo and the Hearst ‘Castle’.

When you get to San Fran, you should have a burger at Captain Eddie Rickenbacker’s if you like bikes at all – he has an incredible collection of bikes and incongruously Tiffany stained glass. You’re not far from the Stanford Linear Accelerator, and when you get tired of the traffic, you can climb the mountain to Skyline and have a meal at famous Alice’s.

When you’re ready to leave altogether, you might head west and climb Mount Hamilton towards Lick Observatory. This starts off as a good road, but don’t be fooled. It gets narrower and rougher, eventually being about a lane and a half wide, no guardrail and an easy 1000 foot drop to the valley below. Once you’re on top, you can see the Observatory, and head down the backside of the mountain (get gas in San Jose). This is the only place in North America that I have seen a road runner. I stopped and yelled "Meep! Meep!" at him, but I don’t think he got it, or maybe he was tired of the joke.

If you keep going west, you could easily pick up Highway 4 or Highway 120. 120 takes you back to Yosemite. Highway 4 leads past Yosemite to the north and there is a section of tight switchbacks, single lane on a very steep mountainside. Occasionally you’ll see someone in an RV who ignored the signs, and they can be tough to avoid. On the far side is Nevada, and also Markleeville. If you like fishing, the mountain creeks are great places to catch trout. Go North from here and you’re back at Lake Tahoe, lots of history and stunning scenery, such as the falls at the head of the American River and Emerald Bay.

Or, if you went north of San Fran, you could hit the PCH again. Any of the two lane roads leading away from the PCH up into the mountains are going to be a giggling good time.

In short, come to CA, bring a bike. People who only get ot see it in a car are missing out. Be careful in the sierras. I can and have been snowed on in June, and both the times the thermometer on my bike went "out of range" was in CA. I saw below -7 near Donner Summit and something over 117 in the central valley.