After receiving some excellent feedback and tips on the pashnit forums last week on a planned trip over, we did a last minute weather review Saturday morning and decided against heading northwest. Forecast was for fog and rain on Sunday. While rain is not generally a deterrent, why plan to ride in the rain on a pleasure cruise? The weather check for a southwest destination was much better. Indeed, Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day in San Luis Obispo county and most of the way back — until we hit Stanislaus county in late afternoon, that is. More about that later.

Naturally, our route was a journey over several Pashnit roads. We started on heading toward 49. It was a perfect day for motorcycles, as this shot at the border of El Dorado and Amador counties attests:

The Columnes River is the divider between counties here. With a lot of rain this spring, this little river is running fast and wide:

“May flowers” appear here in March, actually…

From Latrobe Rd. we headed toward Jackson on Hwy 49. We could have ridden west, instead of a bit east to 49, but we wanted to hit , a new road for us.

We stopped just south of Sutter Creek on 49 at the “Vista Point” that looks up the valley toward the old gold mines:

Amazing how much gold these mines produced a 100 – 150 years ago…

Pool Station Rd. was a great ride. So much fun that we didn’t stop to take photos until we got to the end, where the road meets Hwy 4, our connecting route west into the central valley (and straight roads… *cry*).

Pool Station produced big smiles:

It won’t stay green for long here, and we’ll need to come to see this again in mid-summer when the land turns a golden blonde. For now though:

Off to the right (in below photo) is a rock wall; one of several we encountered near the end of Pool Station Rd.