Eastern Sierra bicycle touring: Rock Creek to Truckee

Posted on October 10, 2026 by Bryan Keith

Bike Friday New World Tourist review, part one.

Well, this bicycle tour wasn’t a total bust. Being the first ride on a new touring setup, I knew it’d be a bit of a shakedown, but, dang, there was a lot more shaking than I expected. I learned a few things, but it was at times painful — both physically and financially. Six days in a row of rain did not help my mood.

14 years ago Sage showed up in Erzurum with a Bike Friday in a suitcase and did phenomenally well on that folding bicycle riding up and down steep dirt roads.

DSCN0104 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Eastern Sierra hiking: a week at Rock Creek

Posted on September 30, 2026 by Bryan Keith

A mountain eye candy post.

Rock Creek Lake is in NW Inyo County, WNW of Bishop, at about 2970m (9750ft). There are both cabins and campgrounds nearby. What a fantastic place to stay for a little High Sierra hiking. Megan and I spent seven nights at one of the cabins. She had been here before. It was my first time.

The drive from SoCal took about eight hours with our longest stop at the Eastern California Museum in Independence where we learned about Norman Clyde and saw a set of homemade dentures made from coyote teeth. They also have a good collection of Native American baskets. There’s no store up at Rock Creek so we bought a week’s worth of groceries in Bishop.

The rest of this post is really just photos of High Sierra lakes in August. Here’s Megan walking by Rock Creek Lake at the start of our first hike to Tamarack and Buck lakes on the other side of the ridge.

IMG_20250817_091730 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Eastern Sierra road trip: Yosemite NP, Mammoth Lakes, Alabama Hills

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Bryan Keith

Driving our rental car east from San Francisco we crossed the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River in Manteca, stopped at a fruit stand in the San Joaquin Valley, bought groceries in Groveland, and then headed up into the mountains of Yosemite National Park. Our first stop was Olmsted Point where we were greeted with views of Clouds Rest and Half Dome (my Dad and I reminisced about walking up both years ago).

20250709_160123 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Four days in San Francisco

Posted on September 10, 2026 by Bryan Keith

Where do first time visitors with four days go in SF? Turns out mostly to places I hadn’t been to before even though I came to the city multiple times with my grandmother when I was a kid. I wish I could remember the house where she was born, the house where she grew up, the house where she got married — I think she pointed out all of those to me.

Let’s start with a famous bridge

IMG_20250708_174536 by bryandkeith on flickr
Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Spencer

and a less famous bridge.

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California road trip: Ventura to Palo Alto

Posted on August 31, 2026 by Bryan Keith

Ok, it’s been over nine months since I’ve published a blog. I’ve done a bit of traveling in the meantime and sadly only three short bicycle tours, but I’ll start where I left off. Ferda and I had a direct flight from London to Los Angeles (21 hours from our hotel to my parents’ house; finding that inexpensive trans-Atlantic flight was the impetus for our UK trip) and started a road trip with my Dad a couple weeks later.

Our first stop was in Ventura at the San Buenaventura Mission, one of the California’s missions that perhaps even my Dad hadn’t been to before. It was the third that Ferda and I have visited together after Alcalá in San Diego and San Miguel Arcángel on another road trip with my Dad two years earlier.

IMG_20250702_143227 by bryandkeith on flickr
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