Altamont Pass is famous in the Bay Area because it’s covered in windmills. Bikers like it.

We stopped in Camping World, then tried to camp at Uvas Canyon campground. It’s supposed to be open year-round, but they lie.

Our transmission doesn’t like going uphill any more, which is tough, because there’s a lot of it between here and home.

28 February 2008: On a gorgeous spring day, the sun bright but not overly warm, early blossom reeking and the fields full of mustard, I took my bike up to Thornton, and parked alongside the remains of an old historical marker. The plinth remained, but of the original city of Mokelumne City nothing is left. [...]