Hey folks! My name is Ethan and I’m the fourth spokerino out of our six-person team. Day 3 is done!
The stats:
Route: Vallejo, CA———>Sacramento, CA
Mileage: 75.3. Elevation: 1,828 feet
Slushies Consumed: 1 Universities of California visited: 1
Massive, gorgeous, last-spike inspired bridges: 1.
Quite a fun day today. We woke up early since we had a big mileage jump; though I threatened to wake my teammates with Reveille on Bugle, I instead came to consciousness with a gentle Default Alarm Sound on Iphone. We packed our stuff and chatted with our hosts on our way out, meeting another sound-maker named Oliver—a parrot who lives with our hosts! Kawther made friends with this raucous and curious fellow:
Kawther Said making friends with Oliver the parrot
We chowed down on some cereal, bananas, and bagels (thank you, Will’s family!) and set out on our long journey. Well.. not so long—my bike got in a solid 20 feet before I noticed a strange noise. On inspection, we realized some maintenance was necessary.
Ethan troubleshoots his goofy bike.
Our (smaller) team headed out and I stuck with the van for some help from our host, who in addition to being an amazing musician and kind host is also an even hand at adjusting a bent derailleur hanger!
Once we’d fixed the problem, Will and Kawther drove me and my bike up to the team (they’d crossed Vallejo!) and we started climbing over the hills toward the Central Valley. Our route had a few big hills early on, which were on a lovely bikeway which merged onto a long and empty road. We had fun zooming down the downslopes and we chugged through the uphills with all our might.
One such uphill, featuring the beautiful faces of Hunter and Jonathan.
One thing I really like to do on uphills (or whenever the ride gets really straight) is tell myself poetry. I’ve been into folk poems ever since seventh grade, when I started working at the railroad in my valley, so I really enjoy learning the poems that the cowboys on our train would tell the passengers and I.
As we made it over the first two big hills, we flew down into a lovely valley, through Fairfield, and into Vacaville. We were very proud to establish a clip of 16 mph (even with stops!) for this first section. One of my relatives told me we should visit the Jelly Belly Factory, but we didn’t have time today. Next time :)
Check out this really awesome arch we found though!
We pulled into Vacaville and made our way across the city, debating whether the name came from the Spanish word for ‘cow’ or something else. As it turns out, Vacaville is named after the owner of a Mexican land grant (‘Rancho’) from 1843 which included the town. This ranch was called Rancho Los Putos, which was adapted from a local indigenous place-name. I’ve noticed a few towns along our path with similar stories (Jonathan really liked “Yolo, California”).
Me asking ChatGPT where the Vacaville name came from during a snack break and going down a rabbit hole about place-names. Also featuring the talents of Eva, holding some madly scrumptious peach-things.
We had scrumptious lunch in Vacaville and changed out drivers—Hunter took the van, and the rest of us started towards Davis. I was shocked by how much I enjoyed the open farmland between Vacaville and Davis; the team talked a lot about how if Kansas is this flat and this pretty, we think we’ll like the Midwest. The roads were lined with trees and wheat and corn and many other agricultural things. We saw a big combine and I raced the Amtrak to the crossing (I lost, but I guess if I’d won it might’ve hit me, so maybe I really won by losing).
I suppose that sounds pretty quaint, but we adored the beautiful stretches of long, flat riding between the cities. I hope we get more of that soon. (Spoiler alert: the next couple days will not be flat)
Wow, it’s green stuff. That’s pretty neat, right?
The only problem with these beautiful long flat stretches was that we were now fully into the central valley, and the further we got along, the hotter it got. I was starting to steal Jonathan’s water by the time we finally made it into Davis and rolled right into (the GORGEOUS campus of) UC Davis! We were so happy to have made it. We sat down for a snacks-and-water break, but couldn’t find water fountains, so we had to SNEAK INTO the convention center at UC Davis*.
*actually just politely walk into, it was unlocked and people were fine with it
We took the opportunity to get some stretching in as well, with Kawther showing us her crazy awesome stretching ability, which eventually devolved into trying to get my veins to change color by pressing on my elbow (I still don’t entirely understand how veins work, ask Eva).
How elegant, a bunch of Stanford Spokes getting their stretch on.
Then we took off for the final stretch to Sacramento. We took a bikeway along the side of a big highway (Sac doesn’t flake with bike safety, there was a divider & a fence) and along the way, we got a killer view of the Yolo Wildlife Area. During this part, I took the backmost position in line, which gave me a really nice chance to get some peaceful views and reflect on our journey so far.
We’ve committed most of our time in these past days to preparing lessons, taking care of each other, and getting ready for the challenge ahead (coughTheSierrascough), and I’m excited to see how we do as the grade gets steeper. But for the last few days, we’ve also had the chance to view a cross-section of California at a speed and from an angle that isn’t very easy to see going 80 on I-80. It’s been fascinating to see different homes, bodies of water, pieces of history and architecture, and gaps in my knowledge. In just three days, we’ve biked past so many different types of places that I feel a little shocked I haven’t noticed details like these before. I’m grateful for the chance to see this slice of our nation and (hopefully) gain a little understanding from the process.
As we got to Sacramento, I was reminded of a good friend from Stanford who lives in Sacramento and loves it. Despite her insistence that it’s an amazing place, I wasn’t expecting much; I figured Sacramento would be like any other city, and that we’d get to stop biking and eat dinner. We stopped on our way into Sacramento at a gas station and decided to quench our thirst on the sugariest mango slushie you’ve ever imagined:
This slushie was absurdly good.
Having sated our hunger for slush, we continued on our way into the city, and I wasn’t paying attention to the skyline, so imagine my surprise when I come to a stop at a light and look up and see THIS:
Tower Bridge (not my photo), the most gorgeousest massive scaffolded bridge that popped out of nowhere and is actually golden just like little Ethan always imagined the Golden Gate Bridge was.
As we crossed Tower Bridge, I began to take a look around and started to get really excited about this city. There were beautiful structures everywhere and on the other side of the bridge we found the California Capitol building too! We made our way through blocks and blocks of restored Old-West-style shops and museums:
Then we merged onto a pathway which cut by the California State Railroad museum. Between the incredibly beautiful river, the fantastic path, and (TRAINS!) a set of really beautiful train structures and locomotives, I started getting giddy at the historic and aesthetic joy I could draw from the whole area. I think this picture should sum up the joy I felt:
Of course, we took some fun Old Sac photos as a group as we progressed through the beautiful area:
We made our way to our host’s house for tonight and Hunter had already unpacked a lot of the gear for us (he’s the best!). Our generous hosts gave us some pasta and produce we used to make an amazing dinner. They are so lovely and we’re really glad we can stay here for the night.
Today was amazing. I really liked it. I asked to write this blog post so I could talk about my love for the history of Sacramento but as it turns out, I’m a bit of a rambler and this post is getting pretty long already. So perhaps I’ll add in a little history at some point, but for now I’ll let this post stand as is. Tl;dr: We’re having fun. We’re working hard. We’re going farther up and farther in tomorrow, so this spokerooni needs some sleep. Stay safe out there folks, and get out into your communities. They are full of life, jammed into every corner of every town. Go find the life.
—Much love, and sorry for writing a massive essay,
Ethan