Main Street of California

sounds hot as hell.

How 'bout Sequoia National Park?

Great basque food in Bakersfield

Also, my workplace is on one of the old CA-99 alignments.

Yosemite, bitches!

I lived in Merced for a year when I was 10, pretty nice for a ten year old.

And technically this really should be about US-99 parts of which became CA-99 when the Federal designation was decommissioned.

http://www.scvresources.com/highways/us_99/us99000.htm

The Fresno Underground Gardens: http://www.undergroundgardens.com/ and http://www.forestiere-historicalcenter.com/

Wool Growers Basque Restaurant, Bakersfield: http://www.woolgrowers.net/

Great basque food in Bakersfield

-- Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, July 31, 2007 6:55 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Seconded. You ever see the episode of California's Gold Huell did on the place?

http://www.amazon.com/That-Ribbon-Highway-II-Capital/dp/0965137724/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-2149394-4847311

http://www.amazon.com/Highway-99-Literary-Journey-Californias/dp/1597140678/ref=pd_sim_b_2/102-2149394-4847311

http://www.amazon.com/Other-California-Central-Letters-Literature/dp/087417225X/ref=pd_sim_b_5/102-2149394-4847311

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=159039780&context=set-72157594267230740&size=l

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddayusa/461016267/in/pool-centralvalley/

the Great Horned Toad Race in Coalinga is something to behold.

If you had 2 stops between Los Angeles and Sacramento, which two would you choose (going via 99-ish)

I would choose to hold my nose and roll up my windows.

Picked up this cheap on ebay, v good so far

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/5123.php

I love California, but man, that stretch of 99 is really fucking disgusting.

Heh, which do you think is worse, 99 or I-5?

what season?

99, because I've never actually gagged on I-5.

I-5 is a wee bit nasty in parts, tho.

I stayed at a hotel offa 99 earlier this year when coming back from NM, and I was seriously on the verge of vomiting when outside.

is it methane? (99)

I don't know if it's methane, but it's serious cow-shit smell. Also, on 99 you can see the really horrible horrible pens crammed full of cows that can't really move a bit w/o hitting another cow.

The drive between Redding and Chico was mostly boring as hell, but nice when the almond groves were in bloom.

Sierra Nevada brewery restaurant had (probably still has) good food and a few styles on tap that they don't bottle.

Also, on 99 you can see the really horrible horrible pens crammed full of cows that can't really move a bit w/o hitting another cow.

Are they still making those "Real cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California" commercials that depict the cows conversing in open-field bovine paradise?

cow farts are loaded with methane.

bakersfield and merced, innit? thank god for air-conditioning. you could do Tulare the first night and loop through Sequoia NP into Fresno the 2nd.

the gabbneb route would be SLO (FC alt: Santa Maria) and Pacific Grove (FC alt: Salinas or Gilroy) via the coast (FC alt: up the backsides on 118 through Simi Valley and 101 past Pinnacles NM)

There are some farms north of Marin that are a little bit better; I've seen these driving up to Point Reyes. They seem to advertise it with signs like "Stonyfield Farms" or whatever. I really don't mean to get all annoying animal rights guy here and people eating meat is OK with me, but I have never personally seen anything as revolting as the pens offa 99 north of Bakersfield. (xp)

Bakersfield and Merced were my two planned stops!

it's worth a drive through gilroy for the garlic smell!

sucks about the pens:/

I saw similar (well I guess similar, I dont know how bad these are yet) near Amarillo, Texas. Cows in pens as far as eye could see. And yes, that smell

my understanding is Fresno has the most conjunto and the most crime

At the risk of sounding totally yuppie tourist guy, there's a lot more interesting stuff on 1 and 101 between SF and LA.

all of which Huell Howser would be more than delighted to tell you about, in exhaustive detail

Yes. I know you are right! It may be overreading of Gerald Haslam et al, but I have basically become too fascinated by the 99 towns and valley in general not to go this way

Stop in Fresno and Bakersfield, then, and travelblog it all.

it would be reasonable, mileage-wise, to detour to the southeastern edge of the carrizo plain en route to bakersfield