We had 8 people staying at the Villa Lago Inn in Patterson. They were Don Axtell, Kim Carr, Ken Kennedy, Tracy Tyrfingsson, Sharon Tyrfingsson, Jeff Orum, Jerry Schonewille, and Doug Gillison.

It was 73 miles with 5700 ft of climbing for the trip over, with reststops at Lick Observatory and at the Junction Cafe. I recommend the Jerry Burger with cheese. We left San Jose at 8:00 and arrived in Patterson at 3:30, with Doug just a half hour behind. Perfect weather for the whole way.

The Villa Lago Inn was great. The only disapointment that we had was that the hot tub was not working, and by the time they got it fixed it was too late. Next time we'll need to call a few days in advance to make sure that the hot tub is ready when we get there. The rooms were large and not too expensive ($68 with a AAA card). All of the rooms opened towards the center of the Inn, and in the center was the restaurant and bar. Dinner was good, and I'd recommend the personal-size pizza, almost too much for a hungry cyclist. Later that evening some of us went for banana splits at the Denny's restaurant across the street.

We took a vote and decided to not return over Mt.Hamilton, but to go the long way back over Corral Hollow and Calaveras. I had it figured at 90 miles, but on closer inspection it looked more like 100, which it was, with 3100 feet of climbing. Since we changed the Sunday route, we asked the the lady at the front desk if I could borrow her computer to get onto the internet, and so I was able to go onto my BikeMaster website and download the route sheets for the Corral Hollow route.

Sunday morning we awoke to wet roads and a light drizzle. Everybody got dressed up in their wet weather gear. We used plastic bags over our socks inside our shoes. We used shower caps over our helmets. While we were waiting for Kim and Ken to get ready, Jerry and Doug decided to get a headstart, and we would catch up later. 10 minutes later we got going also. Two miles into the route, we made our first turn, from Rogers Rd onto Zacharas Rd, which was marked "Not a through road". I had created this route from maps but had not actually ridden it before.

Well, before we made it to our next turn, the road ended. Luckily it ended at a canal and there was a good paved road along the canal so we took this. I figured that we had stumbled onto the Calafornia Aquaduct bike trail, but I remembered the trail to be more bumpy, but this road was smooth. Then at the road crossings, we only had a stop sign to deal with instead of the horrible gates that we used to have to lift our bikes over. I figured that when they repaved the trail they must have also removed the gates.

At the first crossroad along the canal, we found Jerry and Doug riding along towards us. They had been out scouting, still looking for that missing road. It was good that we were all able to hook up again. Since I knew that the canal was leading us in the right direction, we decided to just stay on it as long as possible. Ten miles later the canal road changed to gravel, so we got off at the crossroad, which turned out to be Gaffery. So it was Left on Gaffery, Right on Koster, Left on Blewett, and we were now back on the original route. We had just saved about 4 miles by being able to stay on the canal road. The drizzling had stopped, the roads dried out, and the sun appeared, so we stopped to take all of our plastic off again, finding that we were now all wet from the sweating.

We stopped at the small store at mile 23, the summit of Corral Hollow, the Nob Hill market in Livermore at mile 50, and at the top of Calaveras. We had started out at 8:15 that morning, and my original estimate of finishing at 4:30 to 5:00 turned out to be a bit off. I finally arrived home at 5 minutes to 6:00, with about 102 miles. Both Sharon and Jerry ended up doing their first century rides ever, all this on top of a tough 73 mile ride the day before. Congratulations.

I figured out the route for going from Patterson to Columbia for the start of Sierra to the Sea, and it would be 18 miles to join the previous route, 30 flat miles to get to Ripon, and 90 miles with 2730 feet of climbing to get to Columbia. It should take about 2 hours longer, so the previous 2:00 arrival might be a 4:00 pm arrival, but we could also get an earlier start, as the Denny's restaurant is open all night. I mentioned all of this to Pam, so this new route is a definite possiblity to do again this June. We'd just need to make sure that the hot tub is up and running.

-Donny