The foothills to glory.

Sacramento is somewhere around 25 feet in elevation; Lake Tahoe is somewhere around 6,225 feet; the route between is 100 miles and carries over at Carson Pass at 8,574 feet. We cruised out of Sacramento along the American River bike trail, which winds upstream to Folsom; the same Folsom which houses the prison where Johnny Cash performed in front of a live, incarcerated audience. My experience with pedestrian/bicycle paths is limited to the Springwater in Portland and the Han river/tributary bike trails in Seoul; both of which are straight and flat. Riding the American River trail was quite a different experience for this reason; although the pitch is consistent with a steady flowing river, the path winds in, out, and around.

From Folsom, we continued east through Placerville (a.k.a. Hangtown) and into the Eldorado National Forest. As we pushed along closer to the final slog up and over, the relief of occasional downhill breaks became more and more sparse. In consideration of climbing mountain passes, what goes down has to go back up, so it's tough to be disappointed.

The bounty of state and national parks all along the west coast provided us plenty of hiker/biker camping. Camping in our eastbound leg has been quite different since there is more private property and fewer parks. We have been forced to be more creative with our camping spots, utilizing cattle land, closed forest service roads, and a variety of other open spaces. On one occasion, we were lucky enough to meet a kind winery owner who offered up free access to his family's horse range. Although our new camping situations are less predictable and harder to plan out, our vulnerability has and will provide more opportunities to reach out and be reached out to. I hope, as we continue to move across this country, that we find many more opportunities to accept random acts of hospitality and peek into the lives of kind people.