When I stepped out of the Sacramento airport around 1:30 pm, I was immediately enveloped in blistering heat, a startling contrast to the 60 degrees that I had been accustomed to since I awoke at 3 am in Massachusetts. The temperature climbed to almost 100 today, which is not unusual for summer in the Central Valley, though it had been relatively cool — in the 80s — up until this week. But late in the afternoon, my sister and I decided to ride our bicycles for about 5 miles on the Sacramento River Bikeway to downtown. I struggled to cope with the sun, but at least the terrain along the river bank is uniformly flat. May was Bike Commute Month in Sacramento , and many of the participating cyclists gathered that afternoon to celebrate the Million Mile May Finale on the RiverWalk in West Sacramento. Although the city’s commuters didn’t actually reach their goal of 1 million miles, they came close! We applauded the results and winners of the challenge, entered a drawing for a free bike (we didn’t win), and cooled off with delicious Italian ices. Then my sister and I biked back to where we had parked the car and headed home. My vacation was off to a good start.