Today we move a little closer to San Francisco, our overnight stay will be Monterey only about 250km north - but we have plans!

After a breakfast of pastries and coffee we headed off. We had planned to travel by the coastal highway but it has been closed for quite a while due to a land slide so we followed highway 101 instead, a little further from the coast. This allowed us to see some areas we had not been before as we have previously ridden the coast route. We stopped for coffee at Salinas and then set the GPS for our next stop.

Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway is located about 21km south of Carmel-by-the-Sea. We last visited Laguna Seca in 2009 on our bike when we attended the MotoGP. It was the scene of Kerrie's hat signing by Casey Stoner. Casey wasn't there today as he is at home getting ready for the birth of his second child.

Today, however, we met Rick who works on the maintenance of the track. No sooner had we stopped and gotten out of our Yaris in the Paddock than Rick pulled up in his Ford Explorer and asked us if we would like to join him for a circuit of the track. As you can imagine it didn't take us long to accept! We gathered our camera and phones and we were off. Who knew a Ford Explorer could go as fast as it did. With Greg taking a video (sure to be posted on Youtube in due course) we travelled around the track while talking about our favourite riders and MotoGP and Superbike experiences. After speeding down the Corkscrew we returned to the Paddock only to have Rick ask us if we would like to go back to the Corkscrew to get out and take a few photos. This time we went around the track in the opposite direction to drive UP the corkscrew and have a walk on the track as we took photos. I don't think even Valentino Rossi has been UP the Corkscrew!

After thanking Rick profusely for our experience (you couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces) we visited the souvenier shop to update Greg's Laguna Seca t-shirt. Some days are just made to be lifelong memories! Still grinning widely we returned to 101 to continue north.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is home to the rich and famous, probably the most famous being Clint Eastwood who was once Mayor of this beautiful area. We found a parking spot in a side street and headed off to explore the myriad of art and craft shops and to have a light lunch as we didn't want to spoil our dinner!

After leaving town we found the Gate to 17 Mile Drive with the best known area being Pebble Beach. We had tried to do follow this road in 2009 on our bike but were not allowed in as "The Residents" were not keen on motorbikes making noise in their neighbourhood! After paying the $10 entrance fee we were instructed to follow the red line on the road to complete our tour. We did as we were told but did make a couple of stops along the way.

Pebble Beach Golf Links was first. Now, neither of us are golfers, but being sport tragics, we know that Pebble Beach is one of the courses used for the US Open and US PGA tournaments on a rotational basis. It is very exclusive and very beautiful. Kerrie hopped out at the Pro shop to take a few happy snaps before we continued our tour. The trees along the route were beautiful and as we approached the ocean side we stopped to visit 'The Lone Cypress' which is a Monterey Cypress tree that are only found naturally in this area and can live about 300 years.

We continued our drive narrowly missing a deer and her fawn and marvelling at some of the beautiful homes. Next stop was at Spyglass Hill where we saw birds, sea lions and seals on the rocks just off the shore.

After leaving 17 Mile Drive through Pacific Grove Gate we followed the coastline until we reached Monterey, our overnight stop.

No visit to Monterey would be complete for us without a visit to Cannery Row and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co for dinner. In 2009 when we were in this area for the MotoGP, Cannery Row was full of motorbikes and riders, today we saw one lone bike parked where we had last seen hundreds. The dinner at Bubba Gumps was as delicious as we had remembered and the view out the window was beautiful.

San Francisco tomorrow to prepare for Shayne and Elizabeth's wedding; really looking forward to this!