Enjoying Life in West Sonoma County

Today we headed out for one of our 50 plus mile bike rides, this time heading out to Freestone, then over to Duncan Mills and returning by crossing the Sweetwater Springs road.  It is a great ride, traveling through lots of redwoods and many beautiful vistas since we climb so many hills on this ride.

But it seems today that there were a lot of people who just got out of bed on the wrong side and were having a bad day.  We were riding mid-morning, not early and it is Saturday so there is not a significant number of commuters heading to their jobs.  We are also very experienced riders and strongly practice safe biking techniques and sharing the road, both when we are driving our car and when we are riding our bikes.  However today, it seems that there was an abnormal amount of road rage with people yelling obscenities and trying to tell us to get off the road.

Well I am sure not going to stop riding, but it is when people act like this that I wonder how our society can ever get along.  Come on people share the road and slow down.  You will save lives and also save some money as you will not be wasting so much gasoline.

First happy 4th of July to everyone.  Just think the last time that the Scrub will be our President on any further 4th of July, but I digress again into politics, my bad but we do need a change and sooner rather than later.

But now onto the purpose of this post, it is a beautiful warm day here in Sonoma.  We got ready to head out for our ride, a 50 mile ride up Sweetwater Springs road, down to Guerneville then out to Duncan Mills and back via Occidental.  It is a ride with a lot of hills (total elevation change was around 3800 feet), but it is off the beaten path and a great way to commune with nature.

When we left we could smell a little smoke again (the damn fires are still burning) and it was cool, but today is going to be hot and we wanted to get out before any of the early revelers for the 4th started driving.

It was a great day and Jo Ann posted a personal best for the ride, which is always a great accomplishment.

It is now a quiet evening with BBQ and some good wine, a nice way to celebrate our independence day, our first back in the country in over two years.