Pedal to Petaluma--Day 3

We have enjoyed much better weather today and made good time over 30 miles to Petaluma.  Add Napa, Sonoma, and Petaluma to our visited-town list.  We considered pushing all the way to San Rafael today, but decided to enjoy our time here instead.  Looks like we are set-up to arrive one day early to Marin, but we will find a place to stay and stick to our "official" arrival time of 2 pm at Milo on Friday.  Hope to see you there!  Eli is doing great--yesterday was full of challenge: long distance, driving rain, cold.  But he rode hard and with a good attitude.

Today we started out from Fairfield.  There are a few routes into Sonoma and none of them are obviously better than another.  I have been using Google Map's bicycle routes to good success, but I double-checked the suggested route last night with a local bike shop.  They approved, promising wide shoulders and nice scenery despite busy traffic along the Jameson Canyon Road.  About 2 miles down that stretch of road, the shoulder narrowed to 2 feet or less.  Meanwhile, this 2-way, 2-lane road was providing the primary access to all I80 traffic into Napa.  When we got passed by an 18-wheeler going 60 mph, I decided to stop and hitchhike the rest of the way until we were off that road.  A nice fellow named Bob stopped and we loaded our bikes into his pick-up.  He took us about 5 miles to the next turn-off.  I'm glad to say, the rest of the route through Sonoma was totally manageable with nice wide shoulders.

We stopped for a nice picnic of leftover Chinese food outside of Sonoma town and as we approached Petaluma, we were surprised buy a CalTrans worker who was trying to hitchhike a ride from us!  Who would of thought?  It turns out it was blog fan and friend, J. Spike Marr! We chatted, took some photos (all photos will be posted at the end of the ride) and headed on our way.  Thanks for stopping Spike :)

We are having fun and feeling good.  I'll see about getting Eli to type a few words as well.

Joey