06.13 - across and up out of the sacremento valley

word has it the valley is going to heat up this week.  i need to get up into lake county and the coastal ranges before that happens.  i'll be on the right side of timing for a change.  except for the wind, i'll still have a headwind no matter what.  

in the sutter community park, in the middle of the night, i felt a wash of water drops.  it stopped, i rolled over.  sometime later i was awoken again by another wash.  the third time, i woke up enough to realize it was lawn sprinklers.  by the fourth time i was up and moving all my stuff.  i relocated over to a pavilion, got out my air matress and dry down blanket (thank you again, linda), hung everything up to dry and went back to sleep.  

i was up early, things were still wet, but packed them up to dry out later. 

so, first past the remnants of the volcano (i think).  they refer to it as a messa and a butte.  the road was called butte pass, but it was barely a blip.

into calusa for breakfast and to change a tube. the patch job on my front tire was not doing the job and i was pumping it up every hour.  i ended up tearing the first patch off and putting a new one on.  that seemed to do the trick.

then another 8 miles to williams and the interchange with i-5.  to a local farmer's market store and a chai.  this is a flat valley floor.  orchards - and more rice.  did you know they grow rice in california where there's a drought?  and water is kept behind chainlink fences.  go figure.

5 miles along i stopped at fruit stand, last stop for 35 miles.  got two peaches, ate one and saved the other knowing the juice would be good later, and it was.  i made the long climb into the coastal range, seemed like a constant uphill, plateau, uphill, plateau all into the wind.  i was also getting a little lax with my water.  two bottles for the 40 miles from williams was not enough; the peach helped.  google had labeled these 'moderate hills'.  my final climb up to clear lake was 3 miles at 7% grade, it almost beat me.

there's something about the low slope gable roof that fits this landscape.

made it to clearlake a couple of hours before dusk, but my web sources were all confused about campgrounds.  only some rv parks allow tent camping, many don't.  and then there are the ones that don't really exist, like the one i was looking for.  so i called down to the far end of the lake, where there was one.  they thought there would still be a spot, but weren't sure.  so i hustled the 13 miles down to the far end, about an hour ride into the wind, of course, and fortunately there was still a spot.  an expensive one, mind you, but still a spot, on the lake with clean bathrooms with a nice hot shower.  and a little boathouse bar a 10 minute walk down the road, with a deck on the lake front.

temperatures were definitely cooler up here and ther was a good breeze blowing out of the west.  there were actually clouds over the mountains that looked like they held rain.

the owner of the rv camp, mike, was really nice.  one of the amenities is free kyack and canoe use.  he pushed for me to use these in the morning, said it would be a terrible shame if i didn't.  i think he is really proud of his lake.  there was a flock of western grebes he was particularly fond of.  they do this thing where they fly/walk over the water, often in groups, for 50-100 feet, churning up the water as they go.

it had been a long day, over 80 miles including a lot of climbing.  in the meantime, the leak in my front tire tube had returned and was getting worse.  i would deal with it in the morning.