the road home

Starting location: Vagabond Inn, Ukiah, CA
Ending location: Calistoga Village Inn & Spa, Calistoga, CA
End of day cumulative mileage: 921.7

Today’s riding was supposed to be pretty easy and uneventful. My plan was to continue down highway 101 until it hit highway 128. Highway 128 is basically my road home. It takes me through Sonoma and Napa wine country before climbing up to Lake Berryessa. It continues downward form there toward Winters before turning into Covell Blvd near Davis. A pretty simple plan, but I hit a snag before hitting highway 128. An over zealous CHP officer threw me off the freeway. I tried to explain to her that it was supposedly legal to ride on the shoulder on these parts, and I had been riding on highway 101 pretty much since Oregon. But she wouldn’t listen and actually made sure that I exited the freeway at the next exit.

It ended up working alright in the end though. I found a little side road that paralleled highway 101. The only thing that sucked about it was that while the highway was pretty flat, the side road kept going up and down, which tired me out. I was sort of worried that I would miss my turn onto highway 128, but it turned out that the turn was pretty obvious, even on the side road.

128 took me through Sonoma wine country, cutting right through the Alexander Valley wine growing area. I actually have a few wines from that area at home. It was kind of cool to see the wineries and vineyards that they came from.

Tonight I’m staying in Calistoga at the Village Inn and Spa. I stayed here on what was up until now my longest bicycle trip, when Paul and I were supposedly riding to Bodega Bay. I remembered on that trip that the hot spring pool and spa and sauna were a tremendous relief after a terribly long and grueling ride through the rain and wind. It still felt good to relax in the spa, even though today’s ride wasn’t nearly as tough. Unfortunately the place is becoming really rundown, the sauna was broken and the whole place in general seemed to be in disrepair. But if I ever ride through Calistoga again, I’d probably still stay there, since it’s relatively cheap compared to all the high end spa hotels in the area.