A Bike Ride, With Joe The Plumber

Now I know why Joe The Plumber gave me a bicycle: He wants someone to ride with.

On Saturday, he decided we should bicycle to Old Sacramento. I saw no escape.

It's been a long time since I did much bicycling, so I was fairly-unprepared. Instead of taking water, I decided to hydrate first. Joe decided to take his water bottle, dangling from a kerchief from the handlebars.

We first bicycled to College Cyclery, so he could get air in his tires. He left his water bottle behind there when it fell out of his kerchief.

We biked up 21st Street. At P Street, we stopped for the light. He pointed at 'The Press Club' and said in a low conspiratorial voice: "It's run by the Hell's Angels." I nodded gravely (knowing how unlikely that is likely to be).

We passed a locksmith that displayed a sign that said: "Think Keys." So, I thought keys.

Joe kept pointing out a variety of local plumbing mishaps along the way, like malfunctioning sprinklers and leaks from large pipes with old fittings. He pointed at pipes poking out of the ground at a street corner and repeatedly said something like: "Vacuum assembly! Beverly Hills!" I stared stupidly at the pipes in the ground, trying to figure out what the heck he was talking about.

We turned off 21st at K Street, eventually emerging among the crowds near the Convention Center. Joe found another water bottle near the IMAX Theater. This newfound water bottle was chilled. Joe decided it was a gift from God.

We continued down the K Street Mall. Joe stopped to take a drink, and spilled some water onto the pavement, to honor "those who are not with us any more."

We plunged into the Saturday midday crowd at Downtown Plaza Mall. We got separated for a while, when a security guard politely asked me to walk my bicycle through the pedestrian walkways, rather than rudely pedaling through, as Joe had done.

We passed through the tunnel under Interstate 5, and emerged in Old Sacramento. We bicycled a short distance north along the Sacramento River, stopping briefly to look at railroad work near the Train Museum, and ended up at the Water Intake Facility on the Sacramento River (pictured at left: christening date 2004).

At the Sacramento River Water Intake Facility, with Joe The Plumber.

Summer's day frolicking on the Sacramento River.

Suffragettes in Old Sacramento lambaste some misogynist Old-West coot who had the temerity to challenge their progressive notions of Voting, and Equal Rights.

Eating ice cream just opposite Evangeline's. Joe entertained himself by chatting up a parking meter reader.

Afterwards, we shopped among the spiked bracelets at Evangeline's.

We bicycled back, mostly by following the Light Rail tracks.

We stopped at the lone remaining tent at the weekly Farmer's Market, under the W-X Freeway, and looked at antique-ey stuff, like a school microscope.

The bike trip was very, very Sacramento, the way we hit so many key Sacramento landmarks.

You know what else is very, very Sacramento? This music video, featuring Krystle Morales (clearly identifiable at 0:18, and again at 4:43, with a trademark Red Rose), hits many of the same, key Sacramento landmarks we visited on this bike trip:



Uh oh! I guess Sacramento's ICE Dance Company wasn't the only one with this idea! Dance crews from all over the world faced off against each other on YouTube using the same song by Beyonce. This Russian dance crew is awesome!

Support our local dance crews against formidable foreign competition! If anyone is going to run the world, it's got to be our local Sacramento girls!