AND THEN THE WIND



Yolo County Court House

We signed up for a bike event- "Fast Flat Fun Bike Ride"  a few months back and have been out every weekend to get ready for it.  We have been looking forward to it as a get away, too.  It was in Colusa which is in the primarily agricultural area along the Sacramento River.

The record breaking temperatures we have been sweating through for the last couple of weeks made us a little nervous, but we loaded up the truck Friday afternoon and headed out to stay the night in Woodland, a town about 40 miles from the location of the ride.



Tom's new office?



Originally we chose Woodland because if the proximity to Sacramento and planned to have dinner there.  Then Tom looked at the options in Woodland and found a nice bar and restaurant in an historic building right downtown, so we decided to stay local.

We had a wonderful night wandering around the historic downtown, had a great dinner and found such a lot of charming places including a darling little office space for rent that we began to plot how we could relocate to Woodland!



Historic Building housing Mojo's and Kitchen 428.



The restaurant and bar is called Mojo's and Kitchen 428.  The server told us all about it's history and give us some good tips on things to see in town.  It was the First Friday celebration and there was an art walk (mostly school kids stuff), there were some roller derby girls having a bake sale, live music in several locations and it was all very festive.

We went back to our hotel before we had too much fun to get up early in the morning for our ride! 

Hanging from the ceiling in Mojo's

We were considering staying over another night and going downtown for an event on Sunday - but when we woke in the morning the hot temperatures had dropped and the WIND had come up - gale force wind, trees swaying  this way and that and dust blowing up everywhere. 

Wind is an enemy of a nice bike ride.  We hopped in the car hoping that 40 miles away the wind would not be so severe - no such luck.  We agreed to cut the ride short if it was just too miserable.  What we didn't know was that the wind was not the only problem with the ride...



On the levy tail.



We registered, got our maps and set off.  It was quite casually run, this event, no SAG wagons, no staff running interference on the busy streets but eventually we got to the river road which was to be the longest part of the ride - photos we had seen did not accurately depict it.  It was not so much along the river as it was the main road people used to get TO the river.  There was no bike lane and no shoulder.  Trucks and SUV's with fishing boats and  other sundry cars were zooming up and down the road kicking up gravel.



Mojo's



Tom thought it was just too dangerous, so we turned back.  We did find a short but pleasant trail up on the levy along the river and we rode around the town of Colusa, saw some pretty neighborhoods and parks. 

Eventually we loaded the bikes back on the truck and went back to Woodland and Mojos where we had a very nice brunch ( Eggs Benedict with Salmon Cakes - yum.) Then turned for home.