Bill Bikes
My bicycling expeditions and jaunts

Home  News  Tours  Rides  Articles  Riders  Pix  Links  About  Search




Tour de Livestock, April 2020
Bodega, Valley Ford, Two Rock, Stony Point: A Photographic Log
24 April 2020

My ace support crew insisted she needed to take a drive today to visit an old friend of ours. It wasn't exactly essential travel, but I decided not to debate. Instead I said, sure, you can drop me and the Ogre along the way and we'll find our way home.

After visiting our friend, she dropped us in Bodega (not to be confused with Bodega Bay, which is a few miles away, although Alfred Hitchcock in "The Birds" filmed the two towns as if they were one and the same). I really wanted to ride along the coast, but she was adamant for her own wifely reasons that I needed to stay off that road. In addition, the parks and beaches are closed, and the local communities, according to the newspaper, don't want outsiders to visit and infect everyone.

Consequently, from Bodega I turned left instead of right and enjoyed the rolling hills and green fields and herds of livestock along the route to Valley Ford and Two Rock and back to Stony Point Road and home. Added bonus. As usual during fair weather patterns this time of year, a steady breeze blew out of the northwest, for much of the route increasing my speed by as much as 5-6 MPH.


Paying respects to Jeff.

Not, by the way, my bicycling companion Jeff.


From Bodega, I could turn right on Highway 1 and pedal over the hill to Bodega Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

But this sign is flashing at the intersection.


Here's the other half of the message on the flashing sign.

Not only are parks and beaches closed, local communities like Bodega Bay have erected signs asking visitors from the big city to wait until everything reopens. Big city? That includes Santa Rosa, even though we think of the coast as part of our suburbs.

I went the other way, toward Valley Ford.


Apparently I came a little too close to these guys, and they decided I wasn't observing proper social distancing etiquette.

Hey, I'm wearing a bandana mask, you wooly idiots!


I went straight ahead here. Had I been following the Great Pacific Coast Bicycle Migration Route, I would have turned right.

I saw about a dozen bikes in the general Bodega-Valley Ford-Two Rock area, but nobody with touring gear. A little too early for that, not to mention contraints imposed by current disruptions.


Moooooo!

Typical view along the road to Two Rock.


Okay, that's pretty impressive.


This guy kept inviting me to join him in the pasture.

Glad was I to see strands of barbed wire!


A wall of bright weeds along the road just beyond Two Rock.

They don't mow their ditches around here like they do in Blue Mound Township.


Almost back in Santa Rosa. I always stop for a photo when I pass this church.




Summary

Date: 24 April 2020
Time: 11:30 - 2:30
Weather: 70 - 85° F, sunny and windy
Route: Bodega - Valley Ford - Two Rock - Stony Point
Distance: 37 miles
Bike: Ogre
Riders: Solo

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? I'd like to hear from you.

~ 107 ~



Home   News   Tours   Rides   Articles   Riders   Pix   Links   About   Search
bstone@sonic.net

Bill Stone

::: Bill Books ::: Bill Bikes ::: Bill Games ::: Copyright © 1983-2021 Bill Stone