The Road to El Dorado is a way to escape the foggy San Francisco

Summer came in like a torch, didn’t it? The heat set records in the Central Valley; the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta was hotter than the hinges of hell. Contra Costa was boiling. But on the coast, for once, we were grateful for the summer fog that rolled in over the Golden Gate and Twin Peaks every afternoon. While the rest of the world was sweltering, San Francisco had six or seven foggy mornings in a row.

I lost count, but it seemed like a good idea. San Franciscans melt like butter in the sun. We promised ourselves not to complain about the weather again, not even next month, in Fogust.

But you know how it is. People in San Francisco are never satisfied with the status quo. No wonder the Republicans don’t like us. And besides, the city doesn’t look good in gray.

The weather gurus said there might be a break in the heat. So maybe it was time for that other ritual of summer: the July road trip.

So I got up in the misty morning, took off my jacket and headed to Tahoe.

The sun rose over the Bay Bridge, near the state line: San Francisco and the fog in the rearview mirror, through the East Bay, over the Carquinez Bridge, through the rolling hills, brown-yellow in color and radiating the feel of a California summer.

Interstate 80 is one of those typical California freeways: big and wide and always under construction. The familiar sights: exits everywhere — Fairfield, Vacaville, Dixon, the Nut Tree, the Milk Farm, Davis, West Sacramento. Not much traffic, easy rolling.

But you have to be careful. Listening to politics on the radio was so distracting that the driver missed the freeway to Reno, so it was US 50. Highway 50 is the least traveled road, at least in theory, but there were a million cars driving around Sacramento. A little cooler mid-week, only 86.

It’s open country on the edge of Sacramento, but just as the freeway leaves the valley, there’s El Dorado Hills, which has grown into a mini-city in the six years since I last passed through. Then comes Cameron Park, again bigger than I remember.

A stop for petrol and some junk food from the petrol station, which is a regular part of a road trip. It’s T-shirt weather here, nice.

Highway 50 is an older road, with fewer trucks, more curves and a bit of history along the sides, such as in Shingle Springs and Placerville.

Three hours outside San Francisco, you can see a patch of snow on the western flank of the Sierra. Now the highway runs along the American River, past old resorts, some of which are boarded up. Big cliffs and a narrower highway, often closed by snow in the winter.

Soon you come across miles and miles of burned land from a fairly recent wildfire, with bare, burned trees. Snow and fire in different seasons near a county named after the mythical El Dorado. That’s California.

At Echo Summit the highway goes into the Tahoe Basin. More than 20 summers ago a couple of hiking buddies and I hiked from here all the way along the spine of the Sierra to Mount Whitney. I was younger then.

But the destination is now easier to reach: around a rocky bend lies Lake Tahoe, still impossibly blue, still astonishing.

We head north, along the lake, in and out of the trees, sometimes along the lake shore. There are a lot of people here, even in the middle of the week. You can’t blame them, even though the pool is busy. A treasure always draws a crowd.

The end of the road was a spot just above the lake’s hill, on the edge of a forest of pines and firs. There was dappled sunlight and a light breeze, just enough to carry the scent of the forest.

There was a table and a small terrace, a good place to watch the day go by. But this was an easy road trip with a nice room and a television. Important events were happening and it was my civic duty to watch. Serious stuff. Flags and talk about the fate of the nation, immigration, inflation, climate change, leadership.

But after a while the stars came out and the moon rose over the forest. Time to turn off the television and the outside world.

Sometimes there are more important things in the summer.

Carl Nolte’s columns appear in the Sunday edition of The Chronicle. E-mail: [email protected]