December 16, 2022
Creston Road
We’re generally happy with our home for the next week. It’s spacious, comfortable, easy to settle into. It has a coffee pot that Rachael can set up the night before so that all I need to do is push the brewing button in the morning when I get up first to turn on the heat while Rachael stays under the covers waiting for the place to warm up.
Two other features we especially like: its location, just two blocks from the park at town square with its perimeter lined with restaurants we can just walk to for dinner in the evening; and the keypad that gives us access without having to carry around a key when we go out. All we have to do is remember the combination. I’ve got a good head for numbers, and this one is super-simple: 4456; so I just memorize it and I’m all set. Rachael is less confident in her memory so she writes the number down and takes a photo on the phone so she can consult it.
These two fine features bring Team Anderson to grief this evening though when we step out to dinner. Our restaurant is only a couple of blocks away and I’ve got a mental image of the route there, so Rachael decides to trust me for a change and doesn’t bother bringing up directions on the phone. In fact, she doesn’t bring the phone at all, which brings us to a pause a half block from the house when we realize it. Neither of us can think of a reason we need it though, so we don’t bother going back.
An hour and a half later, we’re back at the front door realizing that we’ve made a mistake. We’re both anxious to get inside - it’s cold enough that Rachael’s starting to shiver, as I am too because I have to go to the bathroom - but we can’t see the keys of the keypad because it’s so dark. With the phone we could use the flashlight, so there’s a brief moment of panic until I push one of the buttons and the pad lights up. Saved!
Not so fast, Scooter. We’re not quite out of the cold yet because when I enter the combo, the door doesn’t unlock. Maybe that first punch fouled up the combination, so we wait for it to recycle. We repeat this four times, without success. Now we really are starting to panic. We’re out here in the dark and cold, locked out, without a way to even contact our host because we don’t have a phone or any contact information. It reminds us of that awful night in Toro three years ago when we locked ourselves out of our unattended hotel.
And then, we’re saved. Brain flash - it’s 4566, not 4456.
Today’s ride
Today’s modest ride is slow in coming. At ten it’s still foggy and just above freezing, and we’re not Tough Guys and see no need to leave just yet so we hang out for another couple of hours until it burns off. It cuts into our ride time, but that’s fine - we’ve got a fairly easy out and back to the southeast of town, and we’ll just turn back around 2:30. It’s the first real ride we’ve been on in over three weeks and we’re starting out easy until we bike our way back into shape again.
When we do start out around noon conditions are still chilly but otherwise fine. We’ve never ridden southeast from town, and at first I’m not too keen on it. The town sprawls out further in this direction - because the land is flatter than in other directions, I suppose - but three miles into the ride we turn off onto quiet Priska Drive as it quickly stiffens to a short climb that will be the hardest of the day. Suddenly we’ve got a view across the surrounding vineyards and the road to ourselves, just the kind of experience we came here for.
Then, we round a bend and come to the locked entrance to a private development. RideWithGPS has tricked us again, treating us to a pointless up and down on what for us at least is a dead end road. Ha, ha.
So with about a third of the route I’ve mapped out now inaccessible, I stare at the map and improvise a new one - not too hard at first since there’s only one other road right here, Union Road, and we have nowhere specific to get to anyway. We’re just out for a ride and will turn back when the time is right.
We continue east on Union Road for awhile and then turn south on empty Penman Springs Road as it follows bone-dry Huerhuero Creek - just the kind of road we like to see out here, biking past scattered ranches and vineyards with the eroded banks of the creek providing contrast. It gradually becomes more primitive and semi-paved but still a good riding experience, and then in few miles more we merge onto Linne Road as it continues south along the dry creek.
It’s just turning 2:30 and I’m thinking about getting Rachael’s attention so we can turn back when I see a mid-sized hound streaking my direction across a horse pasture. I’m on guard but not too concerned because there’s a fence bordering the pasture, but it’s a sham - the dog just races through the frame of the fence without breaking stride and is at my ankle. A vision of that vicious encounter back in Dayville two years back flashes before me - it took me the better part of a half year before I fully recovered from that bite - but fortunately he backs off when I bellow STOP!! at the top of my voice, loud enough so Rachael hears it from several hundred yards down the road.
Rachael’s waiting for me at the next intersection, and after talking it over we don’t see the smarts in tempting fate by backtracking past that dog so I improvise another way back to town. It starts with a straight shot west on Creston Road, a shoulderless minor arterial that sees just a bit too much traffic for our liking so we branch off to quieter Neal Spring Road when we come to it. A few pleasant miles of this brings us to River Road, another two lane unshouldered arterial, and we turn north for the last three miles to town.
River’s not too bad, but we’re happy when we get to the outskirts of town and come to a bona fire bike lane and feel more secure again. A quarter mile on though we pass through a stoplight and the bike lane disappears. Now though there’s fast moving non-stop traffic, and the road’s narrow and winding with no shoulder. Death Trap Road. What the hell? We grit our teeth and bear down, but then after a quarter mile of this horror I pull us off at a wide spot in the road after spotting a separated bike path across on the other side. It must have picked up at that stoplight and we missed it.
We wait in vain for several minutes for enough of a gap in the traffic to dash across, until finally some hero saves us by stopping in the middle of the road and holding up the queue behind him until we can get across to safety. We wave our thanks and then bike home, thinking that we probably won’t be biking out this direction from town again.
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1 year ago
1 year ago
https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/winterlude2021/cholame-valley/
https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/winterlude2021/bitterwater-road/
1 year ago
Ride stats today: 26 miles, 1,500’
Today's ride: 26 miles (42 km)
Total: 26 miles (42 km)
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1 year ago