Sometimes the best things are worth waiting for. Like ice cream on a hot day.

Newcastle’s Deetes and Karen Andersen – with their 9-year-old grandson, Hunter – joined many other Auburn-area residents Monday in efforts to try to beat near-record-breaking heat.

In their case, that meant ice cream. But with the Uncle J’s yogurt shop they initially went to still not open for the day and the McDonald’s fast-food eatery they next visited for a sundae closed because of a small fire, the Anderson’s were finding the quest for something cool a daunting one.

Next up was a Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors ice-cream parlor and there was a small problem there, too. The soft-serve machine was still not up and running. So the Andersens settled on a gummy-topped dish of sherbet and a cone.

“We’d promised our grandson some ice cream,” Karen Andersen said. And then, noting that it wasn’t noon yet but the temperatures were hovering in the 90s, she added that Hunter would have to make up for it later in the day.

“This is a real splurge,” she said. “We’ll be making up for it later by eating veggies.”

While falling short of long-held Auburn records, temperatures continued their hot streak Monday. On Sunday, the Auburn Municipal Airport recorded 102 – three degrees off the record high for a June 28 set in 1973. Saturday’s 99 degrees was four off 1973’s record for June 27 of 103.

Monday’s AccuWeather.com forecast was for 103 degrees in Auburn but the National Weather Service is forecasting a break in the heat wave Tuesday, with temperatures in the upper 90s.

Johnnie Russell, meteorologist with the Sacramento National Weather Service office, said temperatures would continue to moderate Wednesday and Thursday. Low 90s are expected both days.

And the Fourth of July holiday weekend should get into even better daytime temperatures for the area. Powell said temperatures in the upper 80s should last through the weekend.

Monday’s torrid temperatures weren’t keeping Chad Bartlome and Jaya Green, both from the Grass Valley area, from sharing the local mountain biking experience with Portugal visitor Santiago Ronaldo.

Ronaldo, who lives near Lisbon, had never ridden a mountain bike before but was game for a six-mile, downhill jaunt from Foresthill Road, near the Upper Lake Clementine Road turnoff, to the American River confluence.

Bartlome said he planned the bike trip to adjust for the heat by parking one truck at the confluence – with a cooler filled with cold beverages for the end of the ride.

The river was a good destination to cool off and finish the ride before driving the bikes back up to the other truck, he said.

The three were in for a hot ride, with temperatures nearing the 100-degree mark. Bartlome noted that there was only one other car in the parking lot as they set out.

“All the locals aren’t here – that’s a sign,” he said.

But the three headed out, with full water bottles for a bike journey

“We probably shouldn’t be here but the ride ends at the river and we can cool off there,” Bartlome said.

The Journal’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com.