Breakfast was delivered again bright and early to our door at our inn by the sea.  Today’s surprise was danishes.  Yum!  We were slow getting ready to go.  I don’t think we really want to leave our cozy little room, but it was time to say goodbye to the ocean.

A wrong turn at the lights meant we had another chance to see the Carmel mission and downtown Carmel, and then, it was really time to say goodbye.

It was rainy but we had prepared in advance by starting out in our rain gear.  We drove through Salinas and kept out an eye for Bobby McGee.  No sign of him anywhere . . . still.

After Salinas, the GPS took us on an amazingly scenic but very rough canyon “shortcut” through the hills and farmland of San Benito County.  Gorgeous vistas everywhere but no where to safely stop and take a photo.  We will have to remember it in our mind’s eye.

When we finally reached some smooth pavement we needed a break.  We stopped at the Casa de Fruita outlet for some fresh-baked apricot turnovers and lattes.  Not quite a little operation, though, like the little espresso huts we have been hitting all along the coast.  There were different “casas” everywhere advertising various fruit-based products and a huge pumpkin patch and entertainment centre.   We did not have time for all the “casas” so we picked the wine “casa.”  We bought a pomegranate wine to try.  Should make an interesting dessert wine.

The weather caught up to us again and the wind.  Oh, the wind!  Driving the 152 and then the 99 to Sacramento, we got quite the buffeting and rain off-and-on.  We stopped in Lodi for lunch in a McDonald’s that caught our eye.  It had the golden arches we all know so well but there was a weird little chef character on the neon sign.  Definitely, not one of the standard McDonald’s characters we all know so well.  In looking it up afterwards, we discovered that this little chef character was called “Speedee” and was the McDonald’s logo character from 1953 to 1962.  The first McDonald’s store and restaurant was in San Bernadino, not really that far from here, so maybe the Lodi McDonald’s was one of the original “expansion” restaurants.  It certainly looked like some of the early McDonald’s restaurants with the arches built into the sides of the restaurant.

Lodi is known for its wineries, not its McDonald’s restaurant, so we decided to try and locate Cycles Gladiator Winery as we had purchased a bottle of their Cabernet Sauvingnon in Calgary and had quite enjoyed it.  I had an address but it brought us to a residential home.  The home was surrounded by miles of grapevines, but it was NOT the Cycles Gladiator Winery.  At least, it was not the “public face” of Cycles Gladiator.  Determined not to leave a California wine region without a bottle of wine, we randomly picked another winery off the wine route directional sign – Ripken – and followed all the signs to, you guessed it, a closed wine-tasting room.  We did take a picture, though!

The last stretch into Sacramento flew by and before we knew it we were at our destination for the evening.  Our timing was perfect as one of our hosts in Sacramento – Chris – just got home from work as Jeremy drove onto the sidewalk in front of his home.  No, Jeremy did not go crazy with his motorcycle driving and decide to start driving on sidewalks.  Chris and Stacey have a little courtyard in front of their house that we can squeeze our motorcycle into and lock it up for a few days.  Time to play tourist again for a few days and give the Honda a break!  Koira will also get a chance to socialize with some other little dogs – two tiny Maltese pups named Sophie and Mico.  Absolutely adorable!  Koira is the “big dog” in the house this time, but Sophie definitely rules the roost!