Day 5: These orchards, those regrets (Sacramento to Yuba City)

We took the morning slow with the first pancakes of the trip (sourdough, with caramelized peaches). My mom drove up to drop off the Go Pro (we’re going to stick it on some sol cycles, on our handlebars, and film the Idaho class with it) and lacrosse ball (to roll out the hips and the backs and the feet). I went with her to buy coffee at the shop, which was the most classic and we sat on the floor among the rugs and clothes and beds and lived easy.

We left later than we should’ve and left the last place I’d be familiar with. We took the Sacramento river bike trail but note -- wait til the park to get on it because wood decks are awful on the wrists.

We took the Garden Highway pretty much the whole way up, except we cut over to it diagonally through Natomas. Road was mostly good, but pretty rough at times. I listened to some podcasts for the first time (a Ted Radio Hour on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs) and stopped on the bank of the American River for lunch my mama brought - a banh mi sandwich and an orange. I love the kind of sticky your hands get peeling and eating one whole, tacky but clean. Sandwich and fruit laid out on the grass, I watched some men put boats out to water and hummed.

Our first real highway, Highway 99, wasn’t so bad. I mean, big trucks and fast cars, but the road was really good, unwalled, shoulder to shoulder with farmland.

Meanwhile in Racheland:

Liz is doing most of the writing here, but you can’t get rid of me that easily! I’m going to squeeze in some scribbles here and there. Here are some random thoughts from today --

I’ve got to admit, I was excited. Google told us today would be flat, so that meant I could finally whip out my chromonica/duct tape contraption to play while riding!! (I got a holder that only fits blues harps, so duct tape came and saved the day.

We fumbled over a gravel road, were passed by only a mail truck, and passed many o’ dead snake. Finally we turned on a paved portion of the Garden Highway, and -- at last! -- I triumphantly plopped on the chromonica and started jammin’ out to The Shape I’m In by The Band. I puffed out two notes, and then POW POW POW POW the metal slapped me right ‘cross the face, repeatedly, almost knocking my teeth out. Yeah, physics happened. My bad. No chromonica on the road.

Then, while waiting for Liz about halfway through the ride, I had a run-in with Farmer Greg and his pitbull Baby Girl. Baby Girl tried to bite my leg in half as I sat down to devour a sandwich, and Greg came outside to observe the commotion. Turns out Greg is a, not one, but TWO-time lumberjack world champion (yes, this is a thing, LOOK!) Day 5 and I'd already brushed noses with my first celeb! And to make matters more exciting, Baby Girl's favorite activity was getting sprayed face-first with a fire hose and doing a "full 360" to jump around and catch the water in her mouth. I got to watch, but after about ten minutes of entertainment I had to get back on the road.

Back to Liz:

Rachel and I caught up with each other ten miles from Yuba City, stopped at Walgreens for gatorade, rode on to our first Warm Showers host. The family -- two grandparents, their daughter, and her three kids -- set us up on a soft lawn in the backyard. The two grandparents rode their bikes across the country after their retirement, took almost half a year to do it. They told us stories of crashing in fire stations and being chased by dogs and awed by beauty. I wish we had that time, but I’m also so excited for Alaska, graduate school, and everything that comes after we make it to New York. Trying hard to stay present, pay more attention to the people who open their homes and hearts to us, but I spend a lot of time caught up in my head and in Yuba, I was still real worried, fretting, angry about trying to make it across the country, just didn’t know how to unravel it.

Day 4: Huffin and puffin (Davis to Sacramento)

That 7 am wake up call. I ran to Ace to pick up some more screwdrivers (turned out Home Depot’s minis were too mini for our bicycles), and also some nuts, washers, bolts, and super glue. Rachel ran to 7-11 for coffee and we shoveled oatmeal down our throats for breakfast.

Even with a viscious headwind over the causeway we made it to Cal Middle School averaging 13.4 miles per hour. I lagged a little but Rachel tore through those four miles, a little neon light at the end of the windy tunnel.

The first class was … haphazard. We definitely could have prepared better for it, but it’s hard to know how to teach a class when you just walk into it, and you’ve got no background with the kids and no real idea of what they’ve been learning. Rachel chipping in -- it didn't help that NBC was filming our FIRST EVER LESSON. I got so nervous I started eating my own words for lunch, which don't taste as good as the brisket sandwiches we had gobbled down the day before. It felt more natural once we brought the class outside to start playing with the Sol Cycles, but the first ten minutes with the giant cameras plastered in our faces were really hard for me.

But there were a few kids that seemed to really take to the lessons. They asked these incredibly insightful questions, they tried, failed and succeeded in tinkering with the bicycle. And we’re realizing that this trip is going to be about those students. We won’t be able to reach every kid we shake hands with. But we’re hoping we can somehow, in whatever little way, inspire a few.

Monday was the last night of home for me. Picked up some more Sol Cycles at the Urban Hive, printed for cheap by Rocket Department. Spent a couple of hours being enlightened by Pheonix, this thoughtful and relentless lady who founded LEEF Education. She’s one of those people I’m incredibly lucky to have met; her ideas will sit with me and shape me for years to come. Ash, one of the co-founders of Code for Sacramento walked in; he’s back from Iran. And we stayed with Caleb, Tyler and Ben, who I met through Fer, in the cramped and homey one-bedroom apartment they share with some pigeons and some beetles. Caleb made some hearty Jambalaya with sausage and rice and veggies and spice and we curled up on rugs and in old sleeping bags and drifted off to sleep to the sound of the city.

Back to Racheland for a bit:

While Liz picked up Sol Cycles and hung out with Caleb + co, I went to finally get that new bike rack from Bicycle Business (they do bike camping trips every week! You should check it out if you live in the Sacramento area, or wait till we get back and I'll go with you). While I was in the shop I suddenly heard the mechanic holler from the other room "You guys on NPR?” Turns out a middle school science teacher spotted the Cycle for Science sticker on my bike and recognized us from our radio interview the week before! I chatted with her for a while about science education, and the awesome "Dinner with a Scientist" program that she runs for her students.

Next stop -- my lovely cousin Lily's house! Sort of my last night of home too. She whipped me up a delish smoothie (dates, almond butter, chocolate, flax seeds I think? I lost count of the ingredients). Even though she was in the midst of finals week for nursing school, she let me gobble up some of her time (I quizzed her with questions about cardiac arrest) and she even drove me to REI (the last REI till Boise!) to pick up bigger panniers for my new "nice rack." Thanks Lilz! Then I popped over to Caleb's to help Liz eat the Jambalaya.

Cycle for Science begins!

Hey all! 

Cycle for Science is off, zoom! 

At the time of this posting, we have ridden just about 200 miles and tonight we’re posting up in Yuba City. We’re going to update here about every 2-3 days, but we’re a little behind. Bear with us because it’s been an incredible journey so far, and we haven’t even really gone anywhere yet. Our bodies already seem to have adjusted to 50-60 mile days (at least, when it’s flat). But we hit the Sierras this weekend, California’s bony backbone, a ten thousand-foot climb.

See I even broke Google trying to figure out the best route:

We’ve got a couple of posts written, and we’re going to play catch up tomorrow and Thursday in Chico. The stories: they’re coming.

In the meantime, a few quick tidbits to tide you over:

- On Sunday, we …. well, it’s a secret now, but it involves a red Chevy convertible. We say no more.

- On Monday, we taught our first class! Cal Middle School and Ms. Mafe Aguilar let us take over fifth period. Thirty 7th graders and five Sol Cycles zipped around the front of the school. Photos and details on that coming soon.

- Then a middle school science teacher recognized Rachel and her Cycle for Science stickers in a bike shop. “You guys on NPR?” hollered a bike mechanic from the other room.

- Yesterday, Rachel made friends with a pitbull in an orchard today, who was jealously eyeing the bacon bits in her sandwich. Farmer Greg called off Baby Girl and invited her inside to refill water (I was maybe five miles back toodling along after a leisurely lunch at a dock on the Sacramento River, where each station was marked by a rag doll).

Farmer Greg was a two time lumberjack world champion (more on this in Rachel’s upcoming post), and here he is in his infinite glory, with the infamous Baby Girl and his housemate Steven.

- And this morning, we squeezed in a teaching lesson with the grandkids of our amazing hosts (Rick and Sharon from Warm Showers, check out their cross country blog!)

They loved it, and christened the purple one “Sunny”. Some of their feedback afterwards:

“Can we power the internet with the sun”
“I want a roller coaster outside powered by the sun!”

That’s all for now, stay posted for our day-by-day updates. Happy Earth Day!