Day 2- Vallejo to Sacramento

68 miles

It was comfortably cool this morning leaving Vallejo. Our first stop, the Jelly Belly factory, of course! I live in this area, and I'd never been there or taken the tour. It is an impressive operation for sure. Jelly Belly jelly beans are, I believe, the world's finest jelly beans. They even have "sport" jelly beans for cyclists and runners, etc. It was a nice change of pace for an hour.

Upon leaving the Jelly Belly factory tour, I noticed a problem with one of my pedal cleats. The repair crew quickly sprung into action and identified the problem and fixed it. However, at that point all the riders had left, so I rode alone for most of the miles today, which is completely fine with me. There was not a cloud in the sky, and it was about 75 degrees. Around mile 40 or so I got another flat tire somewhere in the farm country close to Dixon, CA. As I was fixing my tire, a smartly dressed cyclist about my age rolled up and stopped to ask me if I was OK. I said I was okay. He said he had just ridden along with a few other riders from our group just up the road. I told him that he should join us as we make our way across our great country over the next 7 weeks. He said he was envious of us, and said his name was Gary.

I said, "Come on, Gary, it's the ride of a lifetime! Get your wife on the phone, I'll convince her that you were meant to go on this ride with us. You help me with my flat tire and riding with our group for a while. It's an omen, plain and simple. Anybody can see that!"

But he looked away, and as tears rolled down his cheeks, he told me why he could not go. He said it would violate the terms of his parole from prison and that they might send him back to the "big house" again. Then he started to shiver. I felt terrible for him. I patted him on the back and gave him an extra bag of Jelly Belly candies that I had stashed in my jersey pocket. It seemed to cheer him up a little as he downed the whole package in a matter of seconds. It was then that I realized the power of candy to truly change the world. We shook hands and went our separate ways.

I rolled along through the endless fields of walnuts, kale, grapes, and jelly beans until the next SAG stop outside of Davis, CA. It's there that the mechanics decided to look a little closer into my flat tire problem as the tires had never shown any signs of puncture by the vast array of garbage that collects on the shoulder of the road. They fixed the rim tape on my back wheel, and hopefully, that will solve this particular problem. These guys are real pros in repairing all manner of biking issues. We are in good hands.

Then it was on to Davis and then Old Town Sacramento for the night. Still feeling good. More tomorrow. We start climbing tomorrow afternoon as we work our way to Auburn for the night.