We woke up from our makeshift campsite in someone’s backyard with some dread for the next day. After a miserable 67 mile day of city, wind, and hills, we were afraid of the day to come. We had gone to bed late due to our late arrival and were woken up by some noisy birds. We decided to take today a little lighter to help us get back on the right track with planning and rest. We wanted to arrive early at our next stop so that we could get a good nights sleep and do some better planning ahead.
Once out of Vacaville, we had a small climb. After the climb, everything flattened out and we start getting the wind at our backs for the first time. The road had few stops and was well maintained. We passed tons of cyclists coming the other way (and a few that came up behind us with their super light road bikes). We stopped at a brewery to get cold water and bathrooms and reflected on how much more pleasant the day was than the previous.
Eventually we reached a bike path that would take us into Davis, CA, branded as one of the best cycling cities in the nation by our map. The bike path took us through some shaded forest and eventually turned into a city. We then understood why. Cyclists were everywhere. The bike paths had roundabouts where they intersected and each cross walk had a bike button. We stopped in downtown while a farmers market was packing up and were given some free and heavily discounted food. We wanted to stop in a bike shop and found that we had 5 or 6 options nearby.
After Davis we took a bike path along the highway that led all the way to Sacramento, the river city. Once in Sacramento, we followed a very nice wooded bike path along the American river. This took us to our hosts house which was just over the road from the bike path.
Our host, Ray, was great. He and his wife do warmshowers hosting but his wife was traveling. He was in charge of the Sacramento Tree Foundation and we were able to make tons of interesting connections with him from an environmental standpoint. Once we arrived, he went to the store and bought groceries for us and we made dinner for all of us, grilled chicken, spaghetti, homemade sauce, garlic bread, and salad. We arrived before 5pm so we were able to spend an entire evening resting (the way most people intend to do it. After going to bed the previous night with dread for the rest of the trip, this evening gave us all kinds of optimism for the rest of the trip.
We also managed to find a host for the next night. The first time leaving one host and knowing where we were gonna stay that night. With the mountains looming we planned to get to our next host and then take a rest day before the 12,000 ft climb.