There isn’t really that much left to tell. Once in California, there were only a few hundred miles between us and the conclusion of the trip. It was hard to believe, but if we went in a straight line down the highway our Epic Ride could easily be over by lunchtime.

So, I scoured the map for the least direct route; hunted for the longest path between points, and liked what I came up with.

The Tioga Pass is the southernmost of California’s famous five passes through the Sierra Nevada mountains. ‘Tioga’ is an Indian word that loosely translates to ‘Really Fun.’ Dark Meat Snack, the group’s expert in all things Indian verified this translation. This particular pass easily lived up to its name.

Tioga!! The entire pass was Tioga. Very, very Tioga!!

California has plenty to offer in the way of Tioga class roads, which is why Rain Cloud Follows and, in honor of surviving the blizzard in Yellowstone, Abi’s Concours, newly christened Snowball will be spending the winter there.

Rapidly running out of time, there was only time for one more of those Tioga class roads, the Pacific Coast Highway.

Before twisting our way down what would be our last really fun road, we stopped off in Monterey, where we stumbled into a really cool hot rod show on Main street.

I love finding these random happenings. They always make me smile, to think that whether or not the masses are aware of it, people are always out there, somewhere, doing what they love. And if other people come and enjoy it, so much the better. Looking for any excuse to make our trip, what we love doing, last a little longer, we spent a while admiring the beautiful cars on display.

Then it was on to the PCH, and the last of my thousands and thousands of pictures.

And that was pretty much that. We made it safely to the end of our trip a mere ten days after starting.

The Entire 4474.28 Mile Epic Ride Route

I am happy to say that at the end of this long and at times trying trip, we were, and still are, speaking to each other. In fact the last conversation I remember having before we boarded the plane to go back to the drudgery of work and the real world was, “Hey, how far is it from here to Banff and Jasper? Think we could do it in ten days, or do we need more time…”

Author: frenchy