This geocache is located on the Dave Pelz memorial bicycle bridge. Bring your own pen. Underneath the bridge runs several historical transcontinental routes.
The original California Pacific Railroad was first constructed to connect the cities of Sacramento to Vallejo and actually finished prior to the construction of the transcontinental railroad. At the time, the transcontinental railroad did not run from coast to coast, but rather stopped in Sacramento. From then, passengers would transfer to the California Pacific (Cal-P) line, which would run until Vallejo, where passengers would then finish their journey to San Francisco. Davisville was chosen to also harbor a junction to service Woodland and Marysville. Essentially the town of Davis sprung from the activity brought on by this junction.
The second transcontinental route is the Lincoln highway. After the automobile had been invented, the Lincoln highway sprung up as a means of travelling from coast to coast, with the western terminus being Lincoln Park in San Francisco and the eastern terminus being Times Square in New York. Built along the tracks of the transcontinental railroad, the Lincoln Highway was America's first "highway." At the time due to the area which is now the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area flooding, the original generation Lincoln Highway routed much more south, and the Davis route is often considered to be the Third Generation route from San Francisco to New York. There are remnants of the old Lincoln Highway run between the tracks and the highway, and sometimes the original pavement can still be seen. To the west, it runs through Olive Drive and downtown, and to the east, Country Roard 32A. The Lincoln Highway wasn't as much of a highway as we think of it now but rather a series of streets and paths that connected towns to towns, cities to cities, and states to states, but led to much economic growth of Davis at its heydey. Later, this section of Lincoln Highway crossing Davis was designated as US-40, and you'll see US-40 signs around downtown.
The third transcontinental route is Interstate 80. The second longest interstate in the US, it replaced the Lincoln High with what we have today. Interstate 80 connects San Francisco to New Jersey and unlike the Lincoln Highway, bypassed town. While the old US-40 and Lincoln highway routes deliberately ran through the city of Davis full of shops and services, the interstate system was designed to bypass all the distractions of surface streets.
**Congrats to two bison for being FTF**