California: Oakdale to Capitola

Stupid rooster. 6 am he’s out there crowing. “FINGER LIKIN’ GOOD!” Stupid bird.

We got up and puttered around. Chatting with my cousin, snagging some breakfast, and generally getting ready to go. It’s not an overly long way to my aunt and uncle’s place in Capitola but there will be traffic. It’s California. There’s always traffic. Anyway while we were getting ready, we were also poking about and getting farm type explanations about things. For example, we initially thought this was one of the bar type riding bulls but she set us straight. It’s a practice dummy for roping. Pretty cool actually. You don’t think about those things but yea, I guess getting a half loop on a bull or cow might not be a pleasant experience 🙂

Before we bailed, I made sure to get a good cousins picture.

Humorously when I was kneeling down to deal with the power for the various devices we had, I ripped a gigantic hole in the riding pants I had on. We’ll have to hunt down a replacement pair eventually. We found out the almond orchard guys bought the dairy farm next door so she’ll be surrounded by trees. On thinking about it, whatever pesticides are sprayed on the trees will drift onto her place. That might encourage her to finally sell and move to a farm a bit farther out. That’s the problem with the big places taking over. Moving farther away will be more of a hardship. Farther away from town and being a bit more isolated. Anyway, we got a quick shower and then got the bike packed up. We headed out the door at around 10:30.

One of the interesting things was the orchard guys dumped a load of crushed almond hulls in the road. The road had a large almond brown section and was a little weird feeling.

We need to head out to 580 eventually then 84 to 680 to 262 to 880 to 17 to 1 and Capitola. Couple of hour ride.

Pulled in to a gas station in Oakdale and chatted with a couple about heat and riding from Colorado. He said he was jealous of folks on bikes. He’s sitting in traffic and zoom, a bike goes by. 🙂 Had a bit of a discussion on how hot it was with him in his air conditioning and us without so I think he understood better what we had to deal with. Maybe 🙂

Headed out on 108 and through Riverdale. Then through an intersection and on. But wait. There sure isn’t a lot of traffic. Lots of walnut trees and almond trees but little traffic. Pull over and check map. Wrong turn of course. Head back to intersection, head north to 120 and out. The good thing, and according to Jeanne, is I don’t get all wound up. It’s “well crap, wrong turn, let’s see, how do we get back to where we need to be? Is straight better than turning around? How far back would we need to go?” The map showed that we weren’t all that far from the intersection and that trying to navigate out to 120 would be a bit more convoluted so back we went.

The ride was still hot in places but with an occasional cool spot. It’s interesting that here, being in the mountains is still hot. In Colorado, when it gets hot, we head into the mountains. We kept on 120 until it merged with 5 and then followed 5. 5 turned into 205 and 580. Interesting there was a “short cut” through Livermore to 680 south. Then cut over to 880 and south. Traffic was busy but not too crazy I guess.

We made a quick stop in Los Gatos for pics of the signs 🙂

Then on to 17 and the crazy twisty ride down into cooler weather. 1 was backed up for miles but I can filter! And it only took 10 minutes or so to get to 41st St in Capitola. Head down to aunt’s house. Even that was a bit of a turn around, back and forth. I misread the address as 49nn when it was 17nn. We did eventually locate the house and we met my aunt and uncle.

And again, more family talk. Chatting about moving (they were further south). My other cousin who we were staying with tomorrow night and her sister’s husband and his friend, along with my aunt and uncle, headed across the street to ‘Shadowbrook’. It’s a pretty cool place with lots of terraces for meals along the side of the face of the cliff. With stairs and even a gondola.