I didn't get an accurate count of bikes because I wasn't sure which belonged to Elk Grove, but I think it was about 27 of ours and 14 or so of theirs, making it around 41 total. We did the pre-ride brief and then lined up below the BART tracks for the ride. We originally planned on splitting up into two Mt Diablo groups and one Elk Grove group, but when we lined up all that changed and Mt Diablo was one group and Elk Grove the second.
We departed and made our way to 680, taking that south to the Stone Valley Rd exit. We followed Stone Valley Rd to Green Valley Rd and then turned left onto Diablo Rd. This turned into Blackhawk Rd and took us to Camino Tassajara which we followed down to Highland Rd where we turned left again. There were a lot of traffic lights here and as you can imagine our group was broken up into numerous smaller groups as we made our way through town. Our 'bread crumb' system worked yet again and we managed to make it through town without losing anyone.
We rode along Highland Rd to Manning and via a couple of other connector roads over to Vaso in Livermore. This was an awesome ride through the hills. The grass on the hillsides was a bright green, no doubt due to the recent rains. The sun was shining bright and was accompanied by a clear blue sky overhead. From there it was a right turn onto Vasco Rd a right onto Tesla Rd and then a couple of left turns onto Concannon Blvd and then onto Arroyo Rd. After turning onto Arroyo we pulled to the right shoulder and waited for everyone to catch up. Once everyone was back together we continued down Arroyo Rd to Palm Dr and the Veterans' home.
As we pulled into the parking lot there were several folks out on the sidewalks and in the parking lot to greet us. We parked and then took all of our donations over to a cart they had brought out for us. Then we visited with the vets and others in the group, soaking up the warmth from the sun. We did have one individual that had said something about turkeys along the road. That individual was later seen stalking the turkeys, slinking from tree to tree with hopes of getting closer to them. Not sure what he was going to do if they did come close enough, luckily we didn't have to find out.
After visiting for a while we mounted up and went in search of food. I had some chores to do before the ride tomorrow so I headed for home.
See you all tomorrow ...
