Originally planned on just going out to the lighthouse but Melinda bailed on her attempt at Mt. Tam last weekend so this seemed like the perfect opportunity for some redemption. Starting early was so nice. The roads were so quiet and peaceful. If Marin roads were this way more often I would ride them more. As it was, later it got really busy and we had some run-ins with entitled, idiot, North Bay drivers! We had hoped to do Tam on the way out and again on the way back for a 13K' day but once was enough for Melinda's baby quads. Seemed like the prudent thing to do was to go back to our original ride plan... which is more or less the route we did. Still building fitness at this point. But even with tired legs, she did great, keeping up on the climbs. I wasn’t going for but also wasn’t taking it easy either. Lots of animals spotted all day, pretty much all by Melinda. Several coyotes, lots of deer, a hawk, and a turkey on Tam that decided to cross the road as I was bombing the descent! The weather was all over the place with Tam being cold and foggy and Ridgecrest being very foggy with limited visibility. The sun came out for Point Reyes and at times, when the wind wasn't blowing, it felt warm and muggy. Unfortunately it was headwind out to the lighthouse but we were expecting that. The new pavement is so nice though! Getting to and from the lighthouse seemed to take forever. The stretch through Inverness is pretty monotonous. All I wanted to do was get to lunch. First time eating at Side Street Kitchen and it was really good. I had the Pork Belly BLT and we shared some Fritters w/whip cream. Yum! Most drama of the day had to be the dog that was tied to a table at Side Street. It yanked on it and the table fell spooking the dog that started running with the table dragging behind, making even more noise and scaring it even more. The table smacked a lady trying to stop the dog. I got to show Melinda a bunch of new roads and trails and she showed me a new trail on the way back to Larkspur that was nice. Towards the end of the ride, it was all about whether we would get 10,000' of climbing or not. It also started to drizzle and got cold. The thought of having to add climbing was so not appealing. It was touch and go, especially at the beginning but we managed to get it before finishing. I felt pretty good all day, so much better than the Santa Cruz ride from a couple of weeks ago.