CA 67 miles

Sacramento CA - 67 miles - February 2001

Here's the post biking portrait, looking like the old man of 62, but still able to ride 67 miles this day. I live with the face but the picture taking can be improved, the Picture book may need more lighting since it has one third the pixels of the Polaroid. Yet I'm pushing the Picture book for biking use, especially on this trip. This writing proceeds backwards in trail time.

I'm also testing the Netscape 6 Composer here and finding that the images still have to be primped with PhotoMax, but Composer 6 does resize your pictures at the page site. Composer 6 seems to portray pictures darker than PhotoMax and we'll see what the web presents.

The paragraph mode has mysteriously handled this paragraph break differently from the previous. But if I again click paragraph format then I get the same paragraph spacing. This tempts me to try Word again especially since Netscape Help has no index.

Presto! Here I am in Word. We’ll see if my Netscape days are behind me. And adding to the Word dictionary was easy enough.

Word's not able to size pictures when inserting, and I am not able to refresh the page to get rid of a cleared image to make way for transformed image. Composer 4.7 has the Refresh function to overcome this problem where Word and Composer 6 do not have the Refresh function. Back to Netscape 4.7!

I eliminated the HTML symbols left from Word and went with a new table for each picture. Composer 4.7 crashed thus I had to redo my writing because I did not frequently save.

This isn't the first time darkness has come upon my bike riding. I simply strap on my red flasher. And perhaps I will get a headlight, but probably not. The riding this night was most enjoyable - silent deer, their shadows stealthily moving away from the road, the sweet smells of the farmland were pleasing, donning every piece of clothing made the coolness tolerable, the moonlight was bright and the traffic light in the distance was a beacon, and the relative road height permitted a scan of the valley for miles to the east.

   This fellow laid on the trail probably a half hour before the firemen and medics got to him. I watched as the medics drove up, then they pulled him from the longer side grass, turned him over, cut off his sweatshirt, started heart message, started an IV, respirated with a air pump, and answered his cell phone, finding out from his girlfriend that he was paranoid schizophrenic and on some fancy drug. Perhaps that's California - everyone having a therapist, a label, being a past drug user, and definitely on legal drugs now. So here he was, working on his health and now most likely dead.
   The young men who came upon the victim were shook, but neither they nor the older biker who came next, thought to provide respiration. Would I have given mouth to mouth? And would another given heart message?
   Apparently he floundered, grabbed his call phone, stumbled off to the trail side, and dropped the phone as he fell unconscious. When the kids came upon him, one used the cell phone to call 911 with a specific 7.5 mile marker trail location. The Park Rangers probably responded to the 911 but they offered no direct aid. And the medics were zooming up and down the south levee until finally getting to the north levee and down to the trail.

   There's my shadow, in awe of the investment in this trail. This is a suspension foot bridge. Further upstream there exists an equally impressive non suspension bridge. I'm on the south side of the river with the trail on the other side. First, the medics were sitting at the next bridge to the west, then they took a pass behind me only to retrace their route. I crossed over and beat them to the victim. Earlier there also was a police helicopter buzzing the trail in the 10 mile marker area.
   I think of the many times seeing firemen just touring the city buildings to become familiar with the neighborhood. And since this event, I have looked at another version of the trail map which shows bike paths on both sides of the river thus negating the trail marker identification.
   I also think of my December 2000 high blood pressure attack. Will I get serious about weight control? Or am I complacent about the increased dosage from 5 mg to 20 mg daily? Eating, eating, eating! Other joys are where I find them!!!

P.S. The Reload function had to be used, The Refresh function was not sufficient. Netsccape 6 nor Word offers the Reload function thus my continued use of Composer 4.73 continues and I will probably have it as the Picture book's default.

Here's the view from the previous bridge. Several fishing boats had just negotiated the rapids. I attempted to see the boats by enlarging the original picture but no luck. Even my mind's eye at my age picks out some detail which the camera misses.
At this point the posted trout limit was five. Keith described the dam and its salmon ladder - I missed that attraction of the trail - must have been where all the gulls were circling and vehicles were parked.

This scene warranted no cropping nor cutting nor enhancement. The American River Park provides a bit of wilderness sandwiched between older housing developments, and leads right to downtown Sacramento CA. One could easily become "lost" in numerous places.
If jack rabbits have seemingly one foot tall ears then the several pair of rabbits which I saw were jack rabbits. My first sightings since my Minnesota days.

   Here's that guy again, this time clearly holding the Picture book, squinting and guessing as to what's on the preview screen since a backlit display becomes near worthless under sunlit conditions.
   This upper bridge brings a feeder trail over the river to the main trail which you can see below. Of course I had to document part of my rig.
   Post ride inspection revealed many thorns imbedded in the tires. Tire air followed the removal of one thorn. Drats! I have resolved to purchase a more thorn resistant tire for the rear. Toting one folding tire for emergency will be sufficient - those folding tires even though Kevlar, didn't seem to offer the best thorn resistance even with an inner belt.

This series of pictures began and ended with self portraits. The focus adjustment was an experiment proving that this particular dialed setting gives a blurred picture. But Happy Harv had his usual smile. Perhaps this "movie" bridge (as reported by the Park Ranger) was the original Sunrise Avenue crossing. I attempted to capture Keith Colburn's home on the bluff in the background but the camera's range did not reach back that 15 miles to the north.

   The following preliminary writing took place at a pleasant McDonald's. Comes the first Monday after the Friday completion of driving the moving truck 2618 miles from Columbus OH to Lincoln CA, and I'm biking in sunny weather. The outer clothing items were quickly shed, prompted by a dime in the bike lane. Since my social security checks have begun, I pass up many pennies, thus the trip garnered just 15 cents.
   After buying some hand soap at the Roseville Plaza discount drug, and receiving some directions from several people, from which I used what I thought was beneficial, and was on my way and in short order. I was looking for a McDonald's for lunch. Sure enough, a Mr. Speedy McDonald's appeared at a busy intersection where their 99 cent sandwich was a Cajun Chicken. I sat outside in the sun where the backlit screen was useless thus I used my low tech notebook and pen, munching the sandwich with extra onions and washed with a senior decaffinated coffee.
   I'm perhaps ten miles south of starting point Lincoln and maybe a mile south of Roseville on Sunrise Avenue. From Lincoln, the mountains on either side of the valley can be seen from the seemingly flat valley. And the waterways were conspicuous - Auburn Ravine, Ingram Slough, and Pleasant Grove Creek. The roads are biker friendly with shoulders on most roads identified as bike lanes. The area sparkles with vitality, offering civility above that seen during the trip through IN, southern IL, the Ozarks of MO, OK, NM, most of AZ, the Mojave, and the farmed valley of central CA.. The only hint of sightseeing on the trip was in Williams AZ where a late night walk in freezing weather took me past four blocks of Route 66 tourist attractions with the finale being the Grand Canyon Railway Station and the associated hotel. I remember decades ago, walking the abandoned rails in the Grand Canyon Park. Now the days of limited rail service have returned to the area.
For me, civility brings warmth, not only of the sun which force low tech notebook and pen, but of access to the hi tech marvels including bike lanes and trails at substantial cost to the taxpayer. From Lincoln, the road trail was the CA highway 65 shoulder south to Washington Blvd. then from the shoulder bike lane to a short bike trail leading under railroad tracks, and south to Roseville to come upon the full travel service Amtrak station, and being full service they had people waiting, thus I leave to other exploration a potential Orlando FL to Roseville CA train trip.
   Traversing through a large tunnel under the train yard which had its own pedestrian walkway, I turned east through Old Roseville then continued immediately south only to come upon the new Roseville in the form of the Roseville Plaza, a shopping center of sorts where I engaged in discussion with several people which led me east on Douglas over Interstate 80 then south on Sunrise Avenue to mile 20 of The American River Parkway where The Jedediah Smith Memorial Bicycle Trail comes from mile 31 at the Folsom Dam Road off of the Folsom Auburn Road (Placer and Sacramento County Line) and traverses down river to mile zero at the Sacramento River (parallels US highway 80).
   Composing this web page took me three days, far too long if I am going to publish my bike travels south through CA and across the southern states to FL. Once there I perhaps will become a Disney employee in continuation of a spirited life. Now on to publishing this piece.