On March 15, two turkeys set out to ride the whole American River Bikeway. Along the way we spotted some wild turkeys doing their springtime thing...

This is a funny process to watch, as the males strut their stuff and the female appears to be annoyed or otherwise oblivious.

Most of the year the wild turkeys (which are plentiful in the area) all look about the same, have little color on them, and don't puff up or show off.

Aaron Needles from Davis, CA, my faithful companion for most of my Saturday ride. He joined me for the entire bike path, plus about 4 miles of backtrack, for a total of about 36 miles, by far his longest unicycle ride ever! Here he's showing how anxious this fountain is to spread the love.

Aaron and John on the Old Folsom Bridge in Folsom, looking upstream toward the Dam and Prison. Aaron was on his new Coker Big One, and I had my older Coker Deluxe with Wyganowski handlebar setup. Our volunteer snapshot-taker made sure to include lots of sky as is the rule for snapshots.

Qualifying Ride day 2: March 16, 2008 and an ascent/descent of Mt. Diablo in Danville, CA. Day 2 was all about getting the ride done, so I didn't take any pictures until I got to the 3800' summit. Here you can see the windmill farm in the Altamont Pass.

This view is looking south, showing some of the South Bay.

This is where I-680 crosses the delta to Benicia. Among other things you can see some of the ships of the Navy's "Mothball Fleet" on the right.

I believe this view is further up the Delta. There's a big bridge and another windmill farm. I don't know where that is!

In the far distance is San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. Much closer is the main parking lot and road. My next challenge would be to start cranking down 11 miles of road and about 3300' of downhill on my brand new Coker V2 and see how the brakes worked out...

A quarry site in the roughly northward direction.

Closer down toward the base of the mountain is this fascinating view of an adjoining peak.

Only a few miles to go, and the Coker V2 was holding up great! I was holding up so-so. Having a brake on such a descent is definitely a lifesaver, if not just a knee-saver.

A look up back the way I'd come. The lower half of the mountain, which that's an example of, is not so steep. It really ramps up after the midpoint.

Looking down into a valley of green, toward Danville.

More springtime greens.

Beautiful rolling hills.

The moon, showing above a gap in Mt. Diablo.