Tuesday, June 11 - Day #1

Well we finally began the journey across the Lincoln Highway, leaving our Santa Cruz house at 9:15 am in the hands of Melissa and Dave, our house sitters. The pets have been left behind with sad looks, but they have a new family to adjust to as Melissa has two older dogs. Daisy, our Dalmation, is receiving extra attention from Duke, a white lab with testicles. I couldn't tell if she was happy or not but she was adjusting. Our two cats are busy writing in their "sad cat diaries" and are no doubt plotting revenge against Earline and me.    Sad Cat

We drove through Tracy and exited Route 5 at Harlin Road at the site of the Ghiardelli Chocolate building. We had always seen that building and decided to check it out. It is a factory outlet and they sell chocolate at about 50% off regular prices. In addition, they sell ice cream and coffee. We had a small dish of ice cream and a cup of horrible coffee. Do not buy their coffee despite their offers of giving a free cup if you buy a chocolate scone. Besides, they were out of scones and we foolishly purchased coffee anyway. They should stick to selling chocolate and leave the coffee to Starbucks. :)

It turned out the Harlin Road is the site of the old Lincoln Highway and we drove backwards to Lathrop where a Lincoln Highway marker was recently placed to mark the site of Wiggins Trading Post.

http://lincolnhighwaynews.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/marker-for-wiggins-trading-post-in-lathrop-pt-1/

Following a quick photo to document our marker find, we proceeded through Stockton following Pacific Highway through the town.  Pacific merges to become Lincoln Way and finally joins Route 99 northward to Elk Grove. We attempted to find a marker in Stockton, but were unsuccessful.

After a quick stop in Sacramento to leave some money for Sean, Earline's oldest son, for school books and a second quick stop to pick up some smoked salmon from Denise and Paul, our wonderful friends, we headed east on Route 50 towards South Lake Tahoe.

Just as we arrived in Sacramento, the "Service Engine Soon" light illuminated and a quick read of the owners manual for my Nissan Armada told me this was an emission problem often caused by a loose gas cap. Since I had recently changed the factory cap to a locking cap after someone stole all my gasoline from the vehicle while parked at the airport, I decided to replace it with the factory cap. Still the light remained on, causing some concern, especially as tomorrow we are to travel the loneliest road in the USA, Route 50 across Nevada. We called a Nissan dealer in Shingle Springs and the code reader cleared the code and he assured me that it was OK to drive the vehicle. The light has remained off.

We proceded through Placerville and located a marker in front of Tortilla Flats where a quick photo documented the find. After that we drove to South Lake Tahoe, across the state line and then on to Incline Village in Lake Tahoe to spend the night with Josh and Carol Bardin, good friends from my surgical residency days at UCSD.

Placerville, CA

Entering South Lake Tahoe

Josh and Carol Bardin