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The weather was just about perfect on Sunday, so I decided to ride out to Livermore, CA and then follow the back roads over Mt. Hamilton, past the Lick Observatory, and on to San Jose, before returning home. The ride was about 170 miles.
I left my home on the San Francisco Peninsula about noon and took the Dumbarton Bridge across the bay, then took Niles Canyon (HWY 84) out of Fremont too Livermore. Leaving Livermore on Mines Road, I passed a sign saying Mt. Hamilton 44 miles, San Jose 69 miles. Mines Road out of Livermore is fairly narrow and very twisty. After the first few miles, Mines Road narrows to 1 lane without a centerline, and runs above a steep slope witha creek below. Caution was the rule for this part of the ride. After about 15 miles, Mines Road leaves the creek area. I rode fairly conservatively on this section of Road, but did pass a Harley. As soon as Mines Road crosses into Santa Clara County, the road imediately widens to a 2 lane road with a centerline. The ride on the Santa Clara County portion of Mines Road was more lively. Mines Road changes to San Antonio Valley Road before turning east and going up Mt Hamilton to the Lick Observatory.
During the ride to Mt. Hamilton from Livermore, I only passed about 10 cars and maybe 15 motorcycles going the opposite direction. For such nice weather, I was surprised to see so few people out on the road. Up at the Observatory, there were only 5 or six motorcycles parked when I arrived about 3PM. inside the visitor center at the observatory are a bunch of paintings from the 1950' and 1960's that depicted what spacecraft were going to look like 40 or 50 years in the future. They were pretty cool, I can't wait for the future to get here. Hey wait, this is the future. Now I'm disappointed all those predictions didn't come true. We were suppose to have people living on Mars by now.
With the great weather and so few vehicles on the road, it made for a great ride.
Here are a few pics from the ride.
San Antonio Valley Road
Lick Observatory
The Lick Observatory Visitors Center
The Road leading down to San Jose
