Day 12- July 3rd

Day 12: July 3rd 31,242 miles on the odometer

Ceci sleeps well, and I slept OK. Well enough that we get up pretty late. We snack on powdered donuts and leftover chocolate from the S’Mores for breakfast. It takes us forever to break camp and load up, so we are off to yet another late start. The weather is awesome, cool and bright. We do a little more sightseeing on the way out, but not a lot. We don’t even stop to get the stamp.
Originally we had planned to ride up the mountain roads to Lassen Volcanic National Park, but in the interest of saving time, we drop that too. Instead we will head up I-5 to Redding, which should get us back one of the days we have lost.
It is a mistake. The ride is horrible. We leave the mountains and have to contend again with the summer heat. The roads are flat, straight, and uninteresting. The annoying wind blows dust from all the farmland around us. It is worse than the wildfire smoke. The traffic, especially around Sacramento is terrible. Battling the cagers and crosswinds has me remembering again how uncomfortable my bike can be when I’m not enjoying things. I constantly bitch through the Chatterbox, so Ceci is well aware of how miserable I am. I find myself wishing we had kept the U-haul; the ride is that bad. Any more days like this and I will abandon the bike and buy a plane ticket home. After such a great day yesterday, today totally sucks. I am glad when we finally pull off for the day and get a hotel near Redding. I hate California; couldn’t stand it when I lived here.
Because of the late start and slow roads early, compounded by the traffic later on, we only manage to go 305 miles.