Sizzling Cheese Food

#310 / # 104

Happy Birthday to Red Leader, now officially 60 years old! Yay!

We decided to start our ride from Alphabent in Sacramento, for an excuse to visit there before and after our ride. It was a Sunday workshop day, but we were the only ones there. Which is OK because we didn't get there until after the workshop would have started. So we were not really late, you see.

Anyway, we unloaded the trikes and headed up the Northern Sacramento Bike Trail, all the way to Elverta, California. We stopped in Rio Linda on our way back for lunch at Tummy's Sub Shop. Yum!

This is a rail trail, constructed on a former rail right-of-way. There are plenty of level crossings to navigate, all very straightforward, with plenty of polite drivers more than willing to let us across the unsignalized crossings.
Near the end of the trail, in Elverta, the trail departs from its straight-ahead path and takes some short turns back and forth. Red Leader proclaimed that the locomotive engineer had fallen asleep on this section. It's his birthday, so he can make up whatever stories he wants.
If I'm not mistaken, this is part of an old electric interurban route that went from Sacramento to Chico. It is easy to imagine being a train on some of the elevated curves just after the trail crosses the American River Parkway trail.

Five years ago, when I last rode this route, all of the green painted trail arches had their signage intact. Some have been vandalized since that time. The ones that remain call out the names, we presume, of the former stops on this rail line: Rio Linda, Del Paso Heights, Elverta, and so on. Or they may be the names of the communities the trail passes through. No clue. The depot building still stands in Rio Linda, I think. Anyway, it sure looked like a rail depot!

Most of the users of this trail were on foot, with a few bicyclists and a handful of horsemen and woman at the far end. Some of the horse traffic was on the trail, but much of it was using the grassy fields adjacent to the trail. I could tell exactly when the horses in the field traveling in our same direction noticed Red Leader: first the horse's head would turn, then it would start swinging its rear around to directly face the Evil Predatory Thing buzzing along the trail.

Tummy's Sub Shop has a nice rail out front to lock bikes to, and has good sandwiches. RL had some thing full of different kinds of salami, and I had a "Turkey Tummy Tickler" with bacon and avocado on wheat. Yummy Tummy!

While we were basking in the sun, enjoying our lunch, we spent some time trying to figure out why the restaurant across the street was promoting "Sizzling Cheese Food". Well, it was not. How about Sizzling Chinese Food.
It really did look like 'cheese', honest!

We went about 20 miles, averaging just under 11mph with all the stops and starts at the crossings. I love this kind of ride, but Red Leader is not a fan of all the stopping and starting. He's been spoiled by the American River Parkway trail.