Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

We got off to a pretty late start today. We went into Healdsburg again for breakfast, stopping first to pick up coffee. The coffee itself took a while, so Jenny and I wandered around a bit looking for breakfast places. There's a candy shop on the main square that has a dazzling array of... stuff. Mostly candy, but lots of random other things, like a breath freshener spray named Happy Childhood Memories.

We ended up having breakfast at Flaky Cream DO-nuts & Coffee Shop. My french toast was good, but the rest of the meal was unspectacular. However, the donuts were pretty spectacular. I had a delicious glazed one dipped in cinnamon crumbs. Yum. I got a chocolate glazed one for later.

We finally got on the road after noon (I know, shameful, but it's a vacation). We went pretty much due south on Eastside Rd and joined up with the Ragle Park/Forestville loop that we had a map for at River Rd. Jenny said it was important that we follow the loop in the direction on the map, so we continued south on Laguna Rd.

The way was really pleasant. Much shadier than yesterday, and generally low traffic along the roads. We crossed Gravenstein Highway (Rt 116) right by the place that Ace Hard Cider is from.

We made our way through the little town of Graton to the West County Bike Path. Even though we'd had little car traffic on the roads (apart from the crossings at River and 116), the Bike Path was a nice break.

After we hit the south end of the path, we did a short climb and found ourselves leaving vineyards for orchards. There were scores of apple trees on either side of the road, and lots of apples on the ground. There was a strange, horseradishy smell in the air which was surprisingly pleasant. It gave way to apples turning into apple cider vinegar, and then to fir trees as we entered Sebastopol.

We biked into town and I saw a restaurant that was serving a Moroccan tagine, so we stopped for a late lunch. We hung around in Sebastopol for a while and explored some of the local stores. Samaki wanted to visit a thrift store, but it was Dave and Jenny who ended up finding things there.

We biked back out of town and returned to the bike path. This time we biked the whole length of it, from South to North. We crossed the 116 again in Forestville, and proceeded North on Covey Rd.

It finally became clear why it was important that we bike this route in the direction marked: Covey has a 16% grade down to River Rd. It was fun to go down, but would have been a pretty brutal climb up.

From River Rd, we returned to Eastside Rd and back to our starting point.

Since we finished at a reasonable hour this time around, we had a wider array of choices for dinner. Jenny had noticed a listing for a Himalayan restaurant, so we drove over there. The food was tasty, particularly the pakoras, but not nearly as spicy as we were led to believe by the Yelp reviews. One of the highlights was the beer selection: Himalayan Blue and Yeti Lager. Yeti was surprisingly sweet and malty. The Himalayan Blue was a fairly crisp lager.

33.16mi in 2:52 rolling, 5:47 total. Route