withinbikingdistance

It was a major accomplishment to reach San Francisco and meet with the Watsi folks, and a major pleasure to spend an evening chatting with Tim, our last minute San Fran host.  We awoke fully rested the next day and with a view of San Francisco lit by the morning sun.  Lizzy and I made a pot full of oatmeal that we guzzled down and took our time leaving our host’s.  He headed off to work but was kind enough to let us hang out as long as we needed.

Sunny morning in SAN FUNSISCO

Like most days we had non-mileage-related goals: They included visiting a Trader Joe’s, and attempting to catch up blogging at a library in Half Moon Bay.  We left Tim’s and coasted down the hill that just the night before foreshadowed his kindness and the comfortable futon we slept like babies on.  We planned to go to Pescadero, which hosted some state beaches that may work well for sneaky-camping.  We headed SE and made our way through some hilly suburbia that made me hotter than any other time on the trip; the black top and the persistent hills we climbed radiated the open sky’s rays and the reliable housing blocked any breeze. It was hot.

black top

We made it to Trader Joe’s and reloaded our snack sacks.  We talked to some police officers who were very enthusiastically interested in our trip.  One kept saying in astonishment, “Wow! So you’re really doing it.”  I’d say he was rather impressed.  The sunnier conditions have been requiring sunscreen, but all we had was the most thick cream you can imagine.  Like toothpaste but perhaps less sticky and more chalky… We’d had enough.  I bought some spray sunscreen and things have been a little better ever since.  This might not seem important, but I’m sharing it because I think this is the point where we ceased to hope for clouds over sun, simply so that we wouldn’t have to put on sun cream.

Still a little burned.

We cruised on down the coast with the challenge of navigating.  Some areas where we’d planned to take the 1 didn’t allow bicycles, but we are experienced bicyclists so with the help of google maps telling us where to ride our bikes… we suceeded.  A little ways south of TJ’s we were about to begin a climb when we saw… to our complete and utter amazement… Something we still have a hard time believing.

Grocery

Out

Let.

Anyway we did the usual there and ended up chatting with a couple older cyclists who were enjoying a nice post-ride-beer at the pub next to Groc Out.  They warned not to take the tunnel ahead, and to be very careful going up the next hill- maybe even to “walk our bikes…”  I think people forget to consider that on our second week of our trip (especially after doing the 101 in Oregon) that we’ve experienced some narrow roads in inclement weather- surely before walking our bikes we’d have to see it for ourselves.  The bikers were friendly, funny, and interested, hopefully ya’ll are reading this!

Unsure of what we’d find ahead, we rode up the hill whose conquering had been delayed.  We found the road to be narrow but nothing we hadn’t seen before, and eventually came to the tunnel.  Our options were to take the tunnel on the 1, or to take a very windy and hilly side-route.  Being rather safety-oriented, I weighed the options in my head; the tunnel seemed like a really bad idea to the cyclists we’d just talked to- Google biking also recommended an alternate route.  The right decision seemed obvious, so we continued biking to the daunting tunnel’s mouth.

wondertunnel!

As it turned out, the tunnel had some very special qualities; it boasted a very wide shoulder, was lit well, and was all downhill- sure enough our backwards reasoning had helped us make another good decision.

California 1

Leaving the tunnel we ranted and raved about the experience.  Continuing along we passed the California beaches we’d been expecting for a while, with folks swimming and sun-bathing and everything!

We continued along and arrived in Half Moon Bay, where we looked forward to using computers for writing and maybe a little trip planning.  Before we knew it the doors closed and we continued south- Almost…  A brilliant idea snuck into my head. Eureka! I suggested that instead of continuing onto Pescadero we stay at the state beach in Half Moon Bay.  The real draw here was the fire ring that we could cook our previously purchased veggie dogs in.  It was decided- we’d cut our day short for a fun night at a real hiker-biker camp.  Lizzy and I had a great fire under clear skies with a dead bush that we found- it’s cremation had been looming, so we went ahead and did the chore. One word for Hiker-Biker camp; luxury. 

Fire caught in its tracks!!!

The next morning, after a breakfast of apples and bars we scooted off for Santa Cruz.  There we’d stay with Ericka, my friend from college, and her girlfriend Rebecca.  We were excited to have hosts-something to spice the trip up- and I hadn’t seen Ericka in nearly 2 years.

Very happy boy to be camping with fire

We rode through fields with headwinds that kept us working.  We stopped at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse after about 20 miles and complained about our butts hurting and the wind (and I about how I was COLD- it wasn’t actually cold, just windy and whiney).  After some snacks to revamp morale we continued south.

Ya’ll know what this is…

Similar to the day before we passed several beaches that told us we were in California- surprisingly, even on this partly cloudy and windy day, the beaches were full of die-hard Californians.  The day seemed full of cliffs and beach on the right and agriculture mixed in on the left.  At Davenport, about 15 miles from our destination, we stopped in a market to look for sweet deals and maybe reapply our new sunscreen.  We headed off with a couple bags of skittles for our final stretch before Santa Cruz.

Fresnel lens that was used at Pigeon Point in the past. STATE OF THE ART during its age.

Something truly incredible happened as Lizzy and I were biking south along a townless stretch of the 1.  Looking out into the vast ocean beyond 100 feet of fields we saw a massive whale breach the surface of the ocean.  We both stopped in amazement, with truly unbounded excitement about what we’d just seen.  Luckily it breached again and several times more over the next few minutes.  We saw others spouting; a group must have been traveling together (I bet whales do this…).  From what we could tell it was a Gray Whale, especially considering that our friend Ariel said that they were currently migrating south.  I say this a lot, but this was a very special moment.  After 10 minutes or so of amazement we continued into Santa Cruz to meet with our friends.

Whaley moley!

After examining some maps on my phone and very specific directions that Ericka had sent me, we found her house and met Rebecca (Ericka was out fishing for a little while longer).  Lizzy and I took turns showering as we chatted with Rebecca about her year-long AmeriCorps position as a Watershed Steward.  We also learned about the restoration event (i.e. noxious weed pulling) that she was putting on the next day, it sounded like a pretty sweet deal.  It made me happy to see Ericka after so long, a rather genuine person.  Ericka and Rebecca were so generous, and made us a wonderful home-cooked meal of chili and cornbread (vegan cornbread- thank you!).  You could taste the love in that chili from a mile away.

Fields that we saw the whales beyond

We headed out to a local brewery to meet with some of our host’s AmeriCorps friends and enjoy a beer.  Lizzy and I talked with a man at the bar that was very interested in what we were doing- excitedly amazed might be the best way to describe him.  We thought cocaine maybe, or perhaps just a lot of energy.  We learned from Ericka which Laundromat in town was the least weird and that were was a GROCERY OUTLET just blocks from the Laundromat.  With a plan for the next day we headed back to Ericka-and-Rebecca’s and settled into our pull-out-couch-paradise.  We slept well that night after finishing the chili leftovers and catching up on our journaling.  A great day of cycling followed by a fun evening with friends.

From Somewhere in California, that’s all folks.  Stay tuned- we have a couple of very special days coming up…

Safety Turtle

Back again! Still attempting to catch up on the blugging (yes, I am writing to you from the future). The next chapter of our saga entails the tales of our San Francisco fails, and our, uh, prevails…ing. I swear I can write.

hint: we did make it.

So, the day begins like any other, except with us waking up IN A REAL BED, IN A HOUSE, WITH A KITCHEN AND, LIKE, COFFEE. On account of that, we may have snoozed a bit. There were only about 45 miles to go to get to Watsi so we felt okay about taking a bit of time to chill out/max/relax all cool in the morning. We chatted with some other folks staying at the Airbnb, who were from Italy, and whom we may have disgraced by admitting that we tend to consume our coffee by the cupful straight from gas station countertop carafes. They took pity us on and made a lil extra Turkish coffee to  put in Timmy’s thermos for the day (which turned out to be awesome) (good coffee is good) (sometimes you forget).

When we finished packing up and getting the last bloop of cell phone charge in (and the last use of a real restroom), we rolled out the door and back onto our true love, the one and only, the one, Highway One.

…For like a mile, then the real adventure of trying to navigate into a mega-metropolis began, benignly enough. We took our directions seriously at first, dutifully making all the correct turns, being rewarded with nice rolling hills of green, usually a good shoulder, and respectable enough car traffic.

We started to ignore them as we got into more urban areas, with Google advising, “Here, try and take this unmarked bike path! Turn left at some point! Try it! It’s FUN”. We stuck to our road, and felt quite content.

So long rural and scenic sights… we’re heading to the big city (but we appreciate you along the way)

also we saw this thingy, which was cool.

After a good 20 miles, we stopped at a little grocery market in Fairfax and picked up some goods (snacks, mostly snacks), then I went out back and picked out some other goods from some bads in the dumpster. A couple slices of rye bread (unspoilt by coffee grounds) and a whole box (minus the red ones) of Swedish Fish, carelessly tossed out by some purist fanatic. We dusted them off and enjoyed our rewards before getting back to work.

Our next task was to get across the Golden Gate Bridge, which we planned to do purely by ignoring Google’s pleading voice to please take a sideroad, and to just shoot for the 101, which had never failed us in the past. We wound through suburbia until reaching a handy onramp, and, ready to join the traffic whizzing by, looked up and saw a large sign banning us cyclists and other fellow non-motorized-car folk from the road.

Fine.

We can take a hint.

We back tracked, and found one of those innumerable bike paths and hopped on, Google feeling quite triumphant and I’m sure gloating in it’s weird 5th dimension cyberspace head.

The path turned out to be great. Through open wetland areas and along beach fronts, we rolled, at our own pace, content on the hard packed gravel.

Google, why do I ever mistrust you? (Note: Google can and should be mistrusted. There are many times when it has tried, and succeeded, in waylaying we weary wanderers)

As we climbed the final hills to Vista Point, families with rented bikes walked down the steep descents on the other side of the road, no doubt wondering why they thought it was a good idea to rent a bike in one of the hilliest places around…

woah, hey good lookin

And finally, we were rewarded with the site of the great orange beast itself, the top obscured by fog, and the traffic from 101 endlessly streaming through it’s towering gates.

almost as orange as our Safety Turtle’s vest

The sidewalks were full of sightseers, taking photos and, well, mostly taking photos. We wove around them and passed over the bridge, a few photos of our own snapped along the way.

very proud. much bike.

Upon reaching the other side we had more directions to puzzle out, but quickly found our bearings (I mean, once we literally let Google take the wheel, er, bars, by turning on navigation mode and popping in an earbud to hear). We biked along the waterfront for a bit, reveling at the fact that the ground was flat, but then turned off into the undulating streets of San Francisco. It was fun to bike through the city, where you need to be alert and aggressive to fight for your space among the cars. It’s a nice contrast to biking for miles on end through the countryside, but I wouldn’t know which I prefer more. As we charged along, I chatted a bit with a bike commuter, who wondered where we were from and going (the baggage on our bikes isn’t particularly sleek or inconspicuous).

After a few more turns (and climbs) we reached the Watsi headquarters, sweaty and red faced as always. We buzzed in, had a heck of a time getting both the fully loaded bikes into the hallway, then ascended the stairs to greet the friendly folks that keep the non-profit running smoothly. We knocked on the door and were greeted by a puzzled face, as I’m pretty sure we looked like two lobster thugs, lobster mobsters if you will. But then we were recognized by our contact, Grace (who endures my many emails), and were ushered in and offered all sorts of snacks and cool beverages.

so. awkward.

Timmy and I stood around awkwardly talking about the bike trip, self consciously stinky, sunburnt, and silly in a clean sleek office environment. Then, as folks were ready to get back to work, Grace let us borrow a computer to do some last minute planning (such as, finding a dope vegan restaurant for dinner, and finding a place to sleep that night… in that order). We scoped out like fifty potential meals, and sent out a blast of emails and texts to folks on Warm Showers (the reciprocal bike tourist hosting website thingy). Quite quickly we got a response from someone who said they wouldn’t get home till nine, but that we could certainly stay at their home!

Hurrah! Mission accomplished! We said awkward good byes and back pedaled out the door, hands full of snacks and bubbly waters.

We walked our bikes a bit down the road to the a giant grocery mart we had seen that reminded us of our beloved Winco Foods back home. Foods Co was …something special alright. Timmy and I took turns, one of us standing sentinel over the bikes (in a lovely corner reeking of urine), while the over scoped the deals/mayhem that embodied Foods Co. It was overwhelming so we didn’t come out with much more than some coated peanut snacks and some applesauce, but it will probably haunt my memory for years to come.

WE LOVE FOOD

After that, we hopped on our steeds and headed to the nearest vege eat, which perfectly enough, happened to be a vegan burger joint in a food truck pod, which meant we could wheel our bikes right in and take over a picnic table while we wolfed down our burgers in seconds flat. We sat there for awhile, killing time before nine by listening to the live bluegrass music, writing, and starting wistfully at the empanada truck offering five different vegan options, but at the steep price of $5 a pop… (which was a good deterrent, as we were already feeling full to the brim, almost at the critical Endless Fries Potato Belly level that we had so dangerously toyed with before).

At 8:30, we headed out to the address from the Warm Showers profile, ready to entertain our host, and get the aforementioned warm shower out of the deal. Timmy and I climbed some steep hills, but I distinctly remember saying, “Wow, San Francisco hills aren’t actaully as bad as I always imagined!” which inevitably cursed us. We got to the address and knocked, with no answer. Timmy checked his phone and the person had texted saying they’d be a few minutes late, so we sat on the stoop and entertained ourselves by eating a buncha skittles. When we got the message that the person was now home, we were confused, but went up to knock at the door again, and that’s when I noticed through the window the little old lady sitting inside on the couch… Hmmm.. We quietly backed down the stairs…. I was about 98.9% sure that we were the target of a rather elaborate prank, a fake Warm Showers profile, complete with even faker raving reviews. HOW COULD SOMEONE BE SO CRUEL?

Tim had better sense though and called the guy up…Turns out we’d mixed him up with another Warm Showers prospect… and we had just gone to the wrong address. Our real host, Tim (now don’t get confused), lived a few miles away, and we were still welcome. He said the good news was that San Francisco was small! (Sure, just after I had just been saying the place seemed huge compared to Portland). So, what else to do but get on our bikes and head to a home on a street quite menacingly named Grand View Ave.

Here is the grand view that we earned.

This is where the real spirit of San Fran showed it’s colors, as we backtracked and pedaled up steeper and steeper hills till we reached the complete top of the town and it was there that I knew we’d have the best host in the world, because, unfailingly, the best hosts always live atop the highest hill around. We reached his door and gave him a ring, and out came Tim and he was a delight. He lead us around to a garage that we could store our bikes in and then up inside to his one bedroom apartment overlooking the whole city.

We settled in and he offered us a couple tasty beers (Racer 5 IPAs) and we all sat down to some of the most enjoyable conversation we’ve had on this trip. Within the first five minutes, Tim had showed us how to use a slide rule (he’s a physic, and obviously had one sitting out on his shelf) and explained all about slide rules. He was genuinely interested in us, and us him, and we peeked around the room seeing artifacts from years of bike racing in insane places, like Death Valley. He said to come through again some time when we weren’t on a time crunch, and he’d take us around the city to see the sights. He even had an ancient bottle of Solarcaine (my new favorite thing in the whole world) laying around in one of his old emergency kits for the bike race support teams.

remember, we burned? okay.

(Solarcaine, if you don’t know, and I didn’t, is a magical cooling potion that you can just repeatedly and thickly slather on your crispy burnt skin. Tim gave us the whole bottle. We’re coming back to visit him again. DEFINITELY)

After healing our wounds and offering a ridiculously comfy futon and any food we wanted to eat, he headed to bed for work the next morning. We promptly headed to kitchen for midnight snacks, and then passed out ourselves.

AND THAT’S THAT.

Stay tuned, we’ll see you next time on WITHIN BIKING DISTANCE: THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES

<3

lizzy

Howdy folks. I write to you from King City, CA (but shh… we’re behind on our blogging).  Here I’ll tell you the story of how Lizzy and I rolled (actually climbed a lot- despite every elderly man joking to us that the whole trip is downhill) down the coast, nearing San Francisco, a real milestone for us.

After eating breakfast with Ariel at a nice cafe in Mendocino we walked to the cliffs once more to look for whales.  We had no luck, thanks to the heavy fog but the scenery was still beautiful. We stopped at a post office (Lizzy writes a post card every single day) before returning to Ariel’s, saying our thank yous and goodbyes, and rolling down the mega hill which she lived atop.

Cliffs leaving Mendocino

We didn’t head out of town until around 11 AM, and hoped to go 50 miles to Gualala.  As we rolled through intermittently fog filled agricultural land I sang Gua-La-La-Gua-La-La to the tune of “Monday Monday” (which has been stuck in our heads since we heard the song in some on point cafe earlier in the trip).

The on-and-off fog meant Liz could break out her sun clothes

We met a bicycle tourist from Quebec who was headed North; he told us a little about his travels through Mexico and told us to “eat lots”- he definitely has the right idea there.  He mentioned Guadalajara, and from then on Lizzy occasionally referred to Gualala with this new name.

Donut Road

We rolled along, and eventually the fog seemed to clear up.  We passed a field of baby sheep and slathered on a thick layer of sunblock to protect our sun-starved skin… despite thorough application Lizzy and I both have burns that we won’t forget about anytime soon.

Sad arms for Team Dynamix

We stopped at the Point Arena Library to work on the blog, see what was ahead, and do some general planning.  We left town with 18 miles to go, and perhaps a little less daylight than would have been preferred; by the time we rolled into Gualala it was getting dark.

On the way to Point Arena

Our destination was a park a mile past Gualala, to which we rode most cautiously.  We set up our tent behind a day use area restroom (out of parking lot sight hopefully) and prepared the nightly special- Beans, corn tortillas, sauces, and chips.  We were happy to have a free spot for the night, and hoped we wouldn’t be disturbed in the morning…  We planned to get up early and bust out a longer day to make the next- our San Francisco day, a low-mileage one.

As we fell asleep, very hopeful to not be in some sort of trouble in the morning, we joked that if we pulled this camping spot off it’d be the greatest heist in 100 years. We now say this about anything remotely sneaky we do.

Sure enough the next morning we awoke to some noises beyond the structure that hid our tent and we began packing up quickly without discussion.  Someone had indeed showed up much earlier than we’d expected, to open the day-use area gate, but must not have seen our tent, as the only car in the parking lot belonged to a friendly fella with a good looking dog.

High Cows

We climbed out of Gualala and up some rather impressive cliffs on the 1.  Lizzy and I were both surprised by how much agriculure/grazing occupies the land adjacent to the many high ocean cliffs.  Cow vacation property… Cowndo.

Cliffs down the road

Our morning break destination was Jenner, which we’d seen on a mileage sign, and dreamed of how it would host a nice market with good deals and maybe a dumpster. On arrival we were disappointed by the small size of the town.  Why put it on a sign if it doesn’t have great snacks?  In all honestly, it was a beautiful place situated on an Estuarine river system with many seals onshore.

Oreo Cow

After a short stop we climbed ten miles out of Jenner to Bodega Bay, which was indeed slightly larger and as we learned upon entering town, had a very special hot dog joint.  We headed to The Dog House to use their wifi, maybe get some fries, and consider our hope of an 80-mile day, especially with 40 miles of hills bullying our legs already.  We had no idea what we were getting into.

As we rolled around a corner The Dog House  cam into view, along with a sign boasting “endless fries.” We were in.

5 full ones baby

The 5 baskets of fries that followed will not can not be forgotten… Not only were they the highlight of the day, freshly cooked and with their many sauces, but they were the hot topic during our next 40 miles of riding.  Lizzy, complaining of “potato belly” and us both experiencing occasional but not completely unpleasant vomit-burps.

We used the wifi at our french fry detour to find an airbnb to stay at that night. My sister Ashley had offered this as a birthday gift, and Lizzy and I figured it would be a good night to have a comfortable place to sleep, as well as to shower the day before we biked to San Fran and visited Watsi.

River along road before Point Reyes Station

Eventually we left Sonoma County, which we’d biked all 58 miles of that day.  Luckily the tallest hills of our day were during our first half.  I say luckily because as we approached Point Reyes Station, the small rolling hills felt more like more major accomplishments than small rolling hills. Especially with Potato Belly.

Large fireplace in the Airbnb

Just as the sun was setting under partly cloudy skies we arrived at our spot for the night.  We hitched a ride into town which boasted a small but comprehensive market.  We got some fresh vegetables to make tacos, as we do when we have a kitchen to cook in (the veggies not the tacos).  The night was filled with cleaning, looking at how sunburned we were, catching up on our writing, and finally prepping a full taco dinner- mushrooms and salsa and all.

Very good taco dinner

Lizzy and I were pooped and both fell asleep dreaming about cycling that night- I guess the long day had gotten to us.

Hopefully all are well- stay tuned for our adventures in San Francisco and beyond! Lizzy’s got lots to tell ya’ll about!

Tim

very high tech microsoft paint image editing software

But he hasn’t died.

But we have considered making a small cardboard replica so that we may forever carry the spirit of his life with us on this journey. Still TBD.

nice place to wake up.

Anyways, we all woke up on the bank of the south fork of the Eel River on the southern end of the Avenue of the Giants, our last morning together. We slowly packed and snacked and skipped rocks (some more successfully than others) and rolled our bikes back up to the main road.

We pedaled our way into the next town, Gaberville, excited to get coffee and maybe sit and write for a bit. Just as we got settled at a table in the Chevvron market, Kyle’s parents arrived outside. They had driven down 1-5 from McMinnville, leaving just the day before, and had already caught up with us (and also picked up a few of our forgotten items along the way, i.e. memory card for Tim’s camera that we left in a library in Arcata, and my helmet which I had accidentally/blissfully left outside a visitor’s center in the redwoods the day before).

They saved our items (thank you!!) and then saved our bellies, as in, they took us all out to breakfast/lunch (daylight savings is confusing. All I know is that I ate a veggie burger with fries and more condiments that you would be comfortable knowing about…). It was good to catch up, and share stories, and relax in a comfy booth, but soon enough our meal were gone, the condiment section nearly emptied, and it was time for us to split ways and get back on the road.

Ayways, we said our bye-bye’s and thank you’s to Kyle and his parents, Scott and Susan, (who also quite generously took some of our more bulky “winter”gear off our hands for us, destined to be back in McMinnville after a nice jaunt around the Napa valley (HOW ARE CARS SO DANG FAST??)) then rolled away, small tears forming at the corners of our eyes, not sure if they were forming from the loss of a comrade, or the wind from the speedy descents of the hills we spent climbing and plunging down the rest of the day.

much climbing. such views.

For real though, the rest of the day we spent working our way up and down the mountainsides of inland northern California. We also spent the better half of the day worrying over how our upcoming plan to sneak through some gnarly landslide zones on Highway 1 would go.

We had heard from a local at the restaurant in Garberville that the roads were completely washed away on the closure at the junction we planned to take just north of Leggett. Tim had difficulty believing that a road could completely disappear after just one season of heavier than normal rains, so we opted to shoot for the stars rather than taking a longer, potentially more winding, route on Branscomb Road.

When we arrived, there were prominent signs displaying the large text “ROAD CLOSED AHEAD” “TURN BACK NOW!” “SAVE YOURSELVES!” (maybe not all of those warnings, but you get the vibe). We’d have to travel down a mile or two of descent before getting to the actual road closure, meaning, if we couldn’t sneak through, it’d be a sad sad climb back up, wasted miles weighing on us like an extra can of beans in our bags.

But these brave explorers are nothing if not stubborn (and untrusting of motorist’s opinions of road conditions). We sped down, and were met with barricades across the road, a backhoe, and a generator powering floodlights beaming on the redundant “Road Closed” signage.

The great thing about bicycles is the complete lack of having to follow the authority of The Man, for The Man drives a car, a great gas guzzling car, that would never fit between barricades, or be able to hide out past a No Parking point. Bikes are sneaky. Bikes are free.

So, we snuck, and snuck, and were worried about perhaps having to come face to face with the construction folks who might be working on the slide farther up the road, and how utterly horrible it would be to have to turn back then, several more miles invested into our less than legal undertaking.

The fact that it was (so thankfully perfectly coincidentally) a Sunday, did free our spirits a bit, hoping the crews would be off for the weekend, and we held hope. After much more climbing and falling, and many more miles risked, we saw two great heavy equipment machines once again blocking the path, and the ruddy muddy brown earth of the landslide, piled ten feet above road level on the path ahead of us.

SO DIRTY

And the seats were empty, and the path was empty, and the roads were empty of cars. The heist has worked! we’d stolen miles and miles of winding, forested, perfectly carless roads, no detours routed motorists safely through, they’d need to take the godforsaken Branscomb Road we so harshly opposed.

bye bye, looking back on our feat.

We walked our bikes between the machines and over the path of the slide and after twenty yards were right back on the 1, not a spot of dirt blocking our way.

WHAT JOY! WHAT RAPTURE! What miles came next were such a pleasure, climbing higher up till we reached a point that we must have coasted down the either side of the range for 10 or more, still utterly, completely, and freely, lacking in cars.

NO CARS!
MILES OF NO CARS!

Sorry. I’m getting a little carried away, but for real, we were some seriously passionately happy kids bicycling through those mountains.

ugh, too pretty. just stop it.

We did some more climbing after our long descent, and at last, we turned the last corner and crested the last hill and came into full sight of the sun setting unimpeded over the wide horizon of ocean just ahead.

IT WAS SO PRETTY AND FULFILLING

As Timmy says everyday, it was a Very Special Day.

Riding on the west coast means maximum amount of sunlight in the evening.

We had thought to make it to Westport (perhaps for a congratulatory vege ice cream sando) but we tempted when we saw a closed campground overlooking the ocean right on our path a few more miles down the road. We lifted the bikes over a bit of fallen fence (more bicycle subtletry and freedom) and rolled about to the back side, less visible from the road, and having a better view over the cliffs below.

Hmm.

There was a road running right at the cliff’s edge, that we momentarily worried cars might also travel down, till we walked and noticed a few paces further that it had fallen right into the ocean and bothered us no more.

(NOTE: Perhaps I’m sounding a bit car-hatey right now. I don’t hate cars. I love a good car ride. I relish a good bike ride though)

not to worry…

We set up camp and cooked our usual meal of beans and corn torts, wrote a bit by the moonlight, and climbed into our bags (and perhaps ate a candy bar in bed to celebrate the day’s accomplishments).

excellent campsite.

We slept well and woke to the sound of a jogger footsteps going past in the morning, and sleepily began packing up camp and preparing for a new day, still appreciating the wonder of the day before and the gorgeous view of the northern California coast.

We rolled through Westport, got some advice at a sweet old general store, cholk-full of a giant collection of rubber duckies, and finished making our way to nearby Fort Bragg, where rumor had it an internet cafe was still in existence (the library was closed for the day, and we wanted to computer it up to catch up a bit on the blog). We also only planned for a short day, wanting to go just eight miles further to Timmy’s friend Ariel’s house for the night in Mendocino.

We found the aforementioned internet cafe, after first worrying that the address listed had been taken over by a relish and hot dog shop, and spent the next couple of hours basking in the warmth of a computer screen and getting jittery from the delicious cups of coffee we were quickly guzzling down.

After typing our fill, we made our way to all three of the grocery stores in town, getting a treat from each (including the most perfect and wonderful vege ice cream sando surprise you ever did taste), and also perhaps scoping the dumpsters for unshelfable goods. (No luck, but I did find a licorice candy on the ground!) (also, unshelfable is totally a word. What does the squiggly red line mean again?)

city parks for shady snacking

After that, we heading back north a bit (through a headwind, which meant our actual route had a TAILWIND!) to a small city park we’d seen on the map, to enjoy a bit of lunch and lounging. We munched, and Timmy walked over to the bathrooms after a bit, where he was immediately called a faggot by some punk ass California youths…

I walked over there afterwards to see how I would fare, and did no better, getting both a ‘faggot’ and a ‘wanna be hipster’. Excuse me, but my grubby clothing is one hundred percent authentic. We didn’t think of a great retort at the time (as always seems to be the case when encountering a bully), but later realized we had missed a great opportunity to use Kyle’s fool proof method of replying with, “Well that’s your opinion but why would you say something to hurt my feelings?” I’m sure that would have stopped them in their tracks.

Anyways, we left the youths to their games and headed back to the bike shop next to the café to fill up on site before we scooted the rest of the way to Ariel’s. While doing so, the first flat of the trip occurred as Timmy’s valve stem just popped completely out of the tube and all of the air came rushing out. Good thing he had a couple spare tubes, and soon after he replaced the faulty one, we were back on the road.

We had about 11 milesto googo and man did we book it! We flew down the road in no time, and even took a slight scenic route into town.

ARIEL IS A GOOD PERSON.

Getting up to Ariel’s house was a whole nother deal… Like all good hosts, she lives at the top of a series of increasingly step hills, and we were sweaty and out of breath by the time we reached her home. She came out and have our stinky bodies hugs quite gamely.

We them headed right out in her car to the cliffs to watch the sunset and watch for whales (which we sort of saw, but then just started pretending that seagulls were flying whales, of which we saw many). Afterwards, we hit the market for fresh veggies to make a dope stir fry, and headed home.

We all had a lovely time cooking and drinking good local beer and talking and joking (and showing and doing laundry).

I gave Ariel some sweet knuckle tatts.

Anyways it was fun and relaxing and that’s where I’m ending my tale. Very anti-climatic. BUT STAY TUNED. I’M SURE SOMETHING HORRIBLE WILL HAPPEN TO US IN THE FUTURE.

luv,

lizbutts

we r dumb