April 29th, 2019 / (115km/70miles, 670m elevation gain, roughly 7hrs ride)
While assuming that today would be stop and go thru Sacramento’s streets with traffic lights cutting the ride into bits and pieces, it turned out that the route was actually following a wonderful bike trail all around Sacramento with dozens of runners and bikers all along.
A lunch stop at Karen’s Bakery in Folsom was a welcome break before heading out into the hills towards Plymouth, counting 834 citizens, which was the destination for today’s ride.
At dinner, at the restaurant “Taste” on Plymouth’s nice litte Main Street, I met Shannon, working here part-time as a waitress. I discussed with Klaus, a long-time best friend who had joined me for the trip for a few days, about my idea to interview people on this trip about their dreams in life and where they were with making it real, and that I had given up on that idea because it was too personal a question and too difficult to approach strangers every day, build some trust so they would actually feel comfortable to share their thoughts. That’s when Shannon approached our table again to ask whether we wanted desert? So I just seized the moment and straight asked her whether I could ask her a question, and she said “yes”. That, I thought, was easy. She told us that she had finished college in the Bay Area only shortly ago and moved out here to the middle of nowhere called Plymouth because her grand parents had a farm and they needed help. So she works on the farm, has a side-job as waitress in the restaurant here and asked about her big dream in life, she told us that she actually wants to start her own business out here: opening a zero-waste grocery store! She’s just still trying to figure out whether that business is going to survive out here. But given there’s a lot of people coming here to tour the wineries and enjoy the beautiful scenery — perhaps it’s worth a try to make that dream come true.