Pedal The Peaks Spring 2008 Pics Bob on Pedal the Peaks Spring 2008

  • Pedal the Peaks Spring 2008 - May 30 - Day 0 - Getting There

    We left the house around noon and drove to Pet Food Express to give KD a bath. Then it was on to Costco to fill up the gas tank with relatively less expensive gas. (We probably saved $2). Benicia was our next stop to drop off KD at her second home. The boys happily greeted her (and us) and got her settled down.


    We were back in the car after about 10 minutes. We set our Nuvi GPS for the Pines Resort in Bass Lake. Trusting it, we drove down 680, 580, 205 and 99S. Our Nuvi was programmed to avoid traffic, so it routed past the normal Yosemite turnoff to Road 20 1/2. Our route took us through beautiful rolling countryside through Raymond, Coursegold, Oakhurst and Bass Lake. On this last leg, there was almost no traffic making the drive very pleasant.


    We arrived at the Pines Resort around 5:30. Dennis and a few others were standing outside the reception area waiting to check in. We joined them and got our room in a large duplex chalet. Our unit had two floors. The top floor had a kitchen and living room with a deck facing the lake. The bottom floor had our bedroom and bath.

    Dennis suggested that we should have dinner on our own tonight since it would be too hard to get everyone together because of variable arriving times. We went to the resort's restaurant - Ducey's. We split a delicious appetizer of calimari in a kind-of sweet and sour sauce with lots of peppers, onions, etc. For our main dishes, Ann had two huge pork chops (she could barely finish one) while I had linguine carbonara. I couldn't finish mine either.


    After dinner, we walked around the resort to get acquainted with it. It was Friday night, so the resort was hosting "Jazz on the Lake" at the Gazebo. There was a combo playing some jazz, but mostly playing other types of music. The venue also featured an all-you-can-eat buffet. We are not fond of this kind of meal. That's why we opted for the restaurant.

    Bedtime was at 10:00. Ann had a poor night's sleep because of too much food. I slept very well waking only to the fight near our chalet at 2:00 AM.