Lucille:
April 23 - Wednesday - After the guys left this morning, I looked through the shops at Casa de Fruta, did some reading, and then left shortly before noon. My first stop was the San Luis Reservoir visitor center. It's so pretty around that area, but the wind was so strong I was afraid I might lose my glasses. As I headed east I noticed the hills are now mostly brown with slight touches of green. The hills we saw yesterday were green. Next I stopped in Los Banos and explored the shops on Main Street. My chuckle for the day came when browsing through a book store, I saw a cookbook named "What Would Jesus Eat?" I didn't buy it. There is quite a bit of new housing on the eastern edge of Los Banos. As I drove along, I enjoyed the yellow wildflowers lining both sides of Highway 152 and the beautiful fluffy white clouds in the blue sky. The next little town was Dos Palos and I looked around there - quiet little place. I did visit one "antique" shop but found nothing I wanted. I was there at about 2:15 and there were several children just getting out of school. And as I headed south on Highway 33 toward Firebaugh I was behind a yellow school bus dropping off the children at their homes in the rural area. Just as I approached Mendota, I spotted Eric and Tom. A short distance ahead I found a place where I could pull off the road, and the three of us had a short break before heading for Kerman. Kerman has one motel in town, and they did not have room for us. Thank goodness for technology. I called Tom and Eric on the cell phone to tell them to meet me at Taco Bell at the junction of Highways 180 and 145. I took reading material and waited at Taco Bell until they arrived about an hour and a half later. We put the bikes on the bike rack and drove 15 miles to Fresno and are now staying at the Days Inn. Tomorrow we'll ride back to Taco Bell and they'll proceed with tomorrow's trip.
First major climb! We made it with ease.
82.6
6:25:19
Total Trip Distance: 210.42
Casa De Fruta to Kerman, CA 92 miles. The first ten miles is steep going from 270 feet to 1370 feet then down to the San Joaquin Valley at about 100 ending at 225 feet.
Lucille passed us just north of Mendota and stopped to join us for a break
ERIC:
Hill, Dogs, Bumpy road, lack of shoulder lane, wind and 92 miles. I am beat! Goodnight. Whose idea was this to do a website each night anyway?
TOM:
Navigation of today's route was simple compared to yesterday. Starting at Casa de Fruta the route went east on 152 to Dos Palos, south on 33 to 180, and east to Kerman. The weather was cool at the start and did not get too hot for the day. We had a great start averaging 15 mph until we got to the Pacheco pass grade and the average speed decreased to 11.2 mph. The grade was not as difficult as we had expected. The down grade made up the speed we had lost plus getting the average up 15.3 mph. After we got to the valley we found rough roads and head winds that slowed us back down to 14.2 mph. The scenery was great! On the west side of Pacheco Pass the hills were green and the Pacheco creek ran along side of the road. This creek is only visible if you are near the edge of the road on a bike. Down by the creek there were some cattle resting and grazing. This was a reminder how beautiful and peaceful the world can be. The view of the San Luis Reservoir was very pretty. After getting to the valley the white clouds stood out against the blue sky over the flat valley. We had three encounters with dogs today. In the first two events the dogs were too far away when they started barking and we were able to outdistance them. In the third encounter the dogs were at our sides and I threw them a dog biscuit that they were more interested in than chasing us. Thanks to Don Mielke for the advice. Over all it was a good day.
After going up and down the mountain, most of the valley looked like this. Great sky