Day 21 - Traffic Law 351.123b

Day 21 - Oakdale to Merced.
This is one of the places all those tomatoes have been going.

Not quite your mother's kitchen.

Stephen made his trailer. If you look close, the "floorboards" are made of skateboards. He left Portland 6 months ago and has spent a bit of time in Placerville on his way to see a cousin in Fresno. His load makes ours look really lightweight!

Pomegranates......the trees look so small to have fruit this big. 

Tuolumne River just south of Waterford. 

On the adjacent gravel bar.

A mountain of walnut shells. It made us wonder....what they do with that much fiber????

We traveled through miles and miles of orchards. During this time Donna formulated Traffic Law 351.123b whereby: The narrower the shoulder, the more likely it is, after no traffic for 5 minutes, that a vehicle from each direction will pass each other at the same time that they pass you. One of these vehicles will be a big truck. It WILL be on your side of the road.

Since Woodson Bridge, Google Map has been saying the routes we've been following are "essentially flat"except for the occasional freeway, railroad or river levee. Today is definitely not flat but this slightly rolling terrain which is actually a nice change.

Oak tree droppings that caught Donna's eye during a shade break.

Crossing the Merced River on the historic Shaffer Bridge.

Looks like its time for a real lunch and a bathroom break.

SR71 Blackbird

Almost there, which is nice since it is mid-90's again.

A little different scale than most of the railroad tracks we've followed.

Oregon Duck fans in Merced? Isn't a little too dry for ducks here?

We got to our motel by 2:30 and thought we would do lunch #2 since that tuna sandwich we had at Castle Air Museum didn't last very long. Fate had other plans. 

On our way to the restaurant we had a little mis-communication which resulted in a quick dismount and Doug's bike didn't quite stop as quickly as he did. This 3 inch gash was the result. So instead of lunch, we found an urgent care doctor, named Robin Turnbull, who happened to be an old Army doctor and stitched it up in a way that Doug could still pedal.

Add a little vet wrap and he was good to go. The nice thing was we found Pinnocchio's, a really nice Italian restaurant, on our way back to the motel and had a early dinner instead of a late lunch, We had been craving Italian and Lobster Ravioli with Dark Chocolate Gelato for dessert definitely qualified. Since it was Thursday, we called it a date night and......

....Doug did bike maintenance and Donna caught up on the journal.

Guess you can't make tomato sauce without squashing a few tomatoes.