Reno to SF ride. Day 2.

After a night with owls hooting and coyotes calling, the increasing traffic noise was what roused us from our roadside camp around 6:30. Tents and tarps were grabbed and stuff back into bike bags.  With Cook's Station only 10-12 miles away, we weren't messing around with a camp breakfast or coffee at this point.  **Note...it was more like 15 miles and it wasn't all downhill like we thought...go figure!**

Chia packing up the last bit of his gear.

What's that old commercial...."The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup!"  Here we see Chia before the coffee has kicked in. 

 So, the internet doesn't always lie.  The breakfast at Cook's Station was absolutely great!  That and big mugs of coffee started us out on the right foot.  Also...they are totally set up for cyclists...huge racks of candy, energy bars, and coolers full of chocolate milk, Gatorade, soda....pretty much everything you need.  Oh, and they'll pack you a lunch to go if you want!

A crappy shot of the dinning room and bar.

The days riding was tougher than we figured.  You hop off 88 and start a back road tour on low traffic roads.  The problem/fun is they roll into river valleys and climb back out repeatedly at better than 7% grades.  A fun but taxing way to ride 4000 ft. of elevation before noon!

Eventually we made it in to Placerville and then via some no shoulder, high traffic roads into Sacramento.

 I guess it's worth mentioning that the section from Placerville to Sacramento was probably my least favorite.  It was friday afternoon and traffic was busy.  The roads literally had the white stripe pained at the edge of the pavement (and sometimes even in the dirt off the road), a.k.a. NO shoulder.  Drivers don't have much room to maneuver on these roads and didn't make much effort to miss us by more than a foot.  Definitely unnerving.

Once you get to Sacramento you can relax....great bike lanes and a section of 35 miles of separated bike path.

You might note the long shadow in this picture in Sacramento.  Yep, we were behind schedule again.  We were thinking Davis, but by the time we hit the bike path (American River Trail) it was already getting dark.  We rode until about 9:30 pm on the path with lights blazing.  There were a surprising number of other trail users out there along with plenty of deer (Chia almost hit one) and rabbits along the trail.  It was really cool except for the fact that we were tired....a little sore...and there's no stealth camping in the middle of Sacramento.  We finally gave up and found a motel 6 just off the bike path (with a Denny's) and called it an night around 10pm, having logged another century.  Sorry, no pictures on the night riding....it's just to sketchy to try while riding at night when your tired.

A little side story....about 13 miles before we quit for the night.  We were stopped at an intersection (in the pitch black) where the path split, trying to figure out which way to go.  Some guy out riding asked us in a nice thick Russian accent where we were trying to go.  We told him West Sacramento....maybe Davis (which was about 25 miles).  He flat out says "No....Really....Where are you going tonight?"  And you have to say it in your best Russian accent.  After he told us the right way to turn and we where pedaling away....we couldn't stop laughing about the total sound of disbelief in his question.