On June 2 I wrote about my trip to Folsom Lake to go camping with my boys. The night went well and we woke up at eight in the morning in our campsite. One of my boys spearheaded breaking camp, which was really great. We worked together.
I noted that I had been trying to do a better job with the packing process but I needed new stuff sacks. We ate all the snacks and the boys did laps on their bikes around the campsite which allowed me to finish packing. When we left the campsite we got a good view of the dam and landscape. We got a few pictures and one of the boys pried a rock out of the road at Folsom Crossing Bridge.
We descended very quickly to Folsom’s Rainbow Bridge and stopped for a bit in the historic neighborhood. Then we rode the river and along Lake Natoma. I got a video. We saw a rattlesnake. One of the boys saw it first and stopped but then the other boy nearly ran into him. I nearly had a heart attack and nearly died from panic but the boys kinda did everything correctly. I think it was fine. I yelled too much.
We continued on from there to Natoma’s dam Nimbus and jumped in the lake. I texted with a college friend and we made plans to meet at the hotel I had booked nearby (there is no camping in Rancho Cordova). We finished our beverages, rode below Nimbus Dam, under the bridge through Sunrise and past Fair Oaks before riding through the neighborhoods. While the river portion of the ride is great getting any services – especially Lodging – is especially difficult because everything is across US50.
When we got to our hotel, it took a bit to get our room set up so we lounged around at pool with my college buddy and his son until it was ready. Then we had a pizza party. We played dodgeball in the room. We also had these cool drones flying around the room.
The boys were enthusiastic at first but, after I picked up some beverages the boys were a little less so. At nearly five years old, my buddy’s kid was a little more easily entertained. We chatted, catching up over drinks and pizza, chasing the balls around etc. They left around 730 and I used the hotel’s laundry room. The boys went to sleep quickly – they were exhausted.
We got up at around nine the next morning and had the complimentary breakfast downstairs. The boys were glum about eating. I had extra coffee before we went upstairs to pack. Despite the need to get back to the trail, we were pretty lazy – I sent the boys to the pool until I was done. We left at 12:30 and I let my college buddy know that I wanted to stop by his place but we were on a schedule.
When we headed back to the Jedediah Smith American River Trail, we passed through parking lots, crossed the freeway on a pedestrian bridge and stopped at a Starbucks. Then we followed a series of suburban streets until we got to Hagan Community Park. We saw a bird on a wire there. One of the boys thought it was a falcon. The other thought it was a hawk.
We rode to Riverbend and I caught my breath. I had been leading for the most part. After crossing the bridge, we used the levees a little, but I wanted a picnic table so on the other side of the sheriff training center we sat at a bench that had a little bit of shade.
From there I had each boy lead until we arrived at Watt Boulevard. Then I had them do it again until we arrived at Howe. One of the boys was enthusiastic, but the other was always tired. I led us to Sacramento State after we crossed Howe and we had another snack. The boys played like they always do there but I decided we needed to get a move on because we needed to make the 455 Capitol Corridor out of Sacramento.
The American River had a new branch of the river trail which had just opened but I was uncertain about getting through at th either end. So, I opted to take the boys up the north side of the river. That turned out to be a good idea because I could see, when we got to the other side of the river, that a valve on the levy was being replaced.
When we got past The Expo Center we discovered an unexpectedly involved detour there as well and I was very not happy about it. I focused on my ongoing personal goal of managing my attitude and outlook. However, I was grousing a lot because it put us arriving at the train on time in doubt. Once we got past the detour and continued onto the 160 bridge, I noted that Amtrak train five was on time and therefore we would not be seeing it pass us as we headed into town.
We crossed the SNR bridge and at the almond factory, we started declaring the intersection street names as we got closer to our train’s departure time. We were trying to get to G and sixth but there was something in the way at E and sixth so we ended up on, sixth at H or something.
Thankfully we boarded our train on time. I sent a bunch of texts, tweets, and wrote imn my notebook until we got off at Richmond BART headed home.
This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.