Second full day in SF- a tour with the Agids, and evening with Aimee and Christine

In the morning, Bruce showed me how to get in and out and the trick to using the garage keypad. He was heading out for a weekend camping trip, and then on Monday leaving for one month in Costa Rica, so he was leaving me the place for the night, which was really convenient for me. He also fed me a great smoothy. He headed out the same time that Judy and Gary got there. We got my bike and trailer boxed and shipped from a UPS store. Bye bike! It was weird seeing it in a box after spending so much time with it for so long, and I couldn't stand to split with the flag that was always back there keeping me alive, so I hacksawed it down to about 1.5 feet shorter than before, and fit it in the bike box. After brunch, Judy, Gary and I did fun touristy activities all day. I'd been to SF but not for 15 years, so it was fun to be a tourist there. We walked down from Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill, drove down the twisty portion of Lombard, and then down the steepest hill in San Francisco, then out to Twin Peaks for a great view of the whole Bay Area, from which we saw more of the Golden Gate Bridge than I'd seen my whole time there (just a bit of the base), then to Fishermans' Wharf, mostly to admire the sea lions and get some dinner.
In th evening I ran to Russian Hill or something like that to meet up with Burning Man friends Aimee and Christine, who were finishing their dinner at their new favorite restaurant in town. Aimee was celebrating her new prescription, and Christine and I joined her in celebrating. :)
We went out to Shine, danced a little, talked, drank, and Aimee experienced her first two-way mirror which was in the men's room looking out. Fun night, and I'm looking forward to seeing the ladies out on the playa!
Well that's it, folks. I got home safe and sound.
Thank you very very much Meghan Pinch for lending me your bike trailer, and Chad for the other gear. Thank you Drew for lending me Bicycling the Pacific Coast. It got so well used I will have to buy you a new one. Thank you Mike and Kim and Lefties, Doug and Debbie in Manzanita, Brian, Bruce, Judy and Gary for the hospitality. Thank you to the fruit stand vendors along with way who graciously offered me their fruit for free. Thank you to all the bike tourers who I met and travelled with, especially Kirk- your company made the trip so much more meaningful. Kirk and I travelled together really well, and our camping and bike skills complemented each other beautifully. I hope it works out for us to do another tour! Thank you to attentive and courteous drivers who gave all us tourers plenty of room. Thank you Mother Nature for providing a stretch of the most pleasant weather on the planet- just one evening of light rain the entire time, and the rest sunny and in the low to mid 70's, with wind that for the most part was going my way.
This tour was a great experience, and I'm already looking forward to doing another!

First full day in SF- roaming the city, getting together with cousin Bruce

The next day I prepared my bike for disassembly, walked and biked around, got a haircut, did my laundry, re-packed, and biked over to Bruce's place, just two blocks off the Embarkadero back toward the Golden Gate Bridge, which was still hidden in the fog. Bruce was very welcoming, and it was great to see him. He showed me in, we went to his favorite gear store, and then we went out for dinner, and met his friend Steve. Later went back to the flat and discussed life and women.

From Bodega Bay to San Francisco!

I woke up early, for me, at 7:45 am. Went to the campground bathroom and on my way back to the tent I saw that three parties were already heading out. This is one thing I must do on my next tour- make better use of the daylight instead of getting into camp at dusk most nights. I brought my bike to Bodega Bay Cycles, which had just opened up 1 month prior. He had what I needed- a truing stand, plus a tensometer, and while I walked to a coffee shop and enjoyed a caramel latte and pastry, Matt, the owner and sole employee of the bike shop, got my tire ready for the road. It felt so good to have a fully operational bicycle again!
I got on the road, which was a bit hilly but not too bad. Met two more tourers, Dave and Pamela, who had lots of bike touring experience, especially Dave, who'd been across America years ago before Adventure Cycling had laid out 3 suggested tour routes across the nation, north, central and south. He said he loved the special attention he got from people who'd never heard of someone biking across the country. We talked best tours ever, and he suggested one he hadn't done, the Route Verte in Quebec. Maybe I'll go there next.
Enjoyed yet another sunny warm day. I was within a couple miles of the coast all day, though not right on it, and the coastal air was a perfect temperature. Spent a good part of the day biking past beautiful Tomales Bay. Point Reyes is just over the hill from the southern tip of Tomales Bay. I stopped at a small town for a yummy bowl of clam chowder for lunch.
Several hours later I entered civilization and made my way to Sausalito, where I took the photo of the foggy bay with sun-lit sailboat. The fog was such a stark contrast to the warm sun I'd soaked in all day. As I ascended the hill toward the Golden Gate Bridge I experienced the strongest winds of the entire trip, and I entered the fog. I hoped for some kind of break in the fog as I started across the Golden Gate Bridge, but no luck! It was an ironic entrance into my destination city, but still I was so happy to finally be there. Once across, it was another hour before I reached AT&T ballpark, a couple blocks from where cousin Brian lives. I called Kirk, and then family members, to tell them I'd finally made it after 21 days on the road.
Brian was busy hosting a gathering with the CEO of his company, Zynga, and couldn't get away early. We finally met at his place at 11:15 pm, spent some time together, and while it was great to see him, he had a lot of work to do that would probably last him all night. So we didn't get to visit nearly long enough. Next time!
I did get to eat a pizza, take a shower, and sleep in a bed again. Brian has a nice new place, and seems quite happy with the new job, other than being so incredibly busy all the time. But he didn't seem overwhelmed, just busy.

A Day of Community

Woke up early and got to work on patching the two flat tubes. Also attempted to true the rear tire, and got it pretty true, so that it no longer wobbled. Ate a bagel for breakfast, and a little water, of which I was nearly out, not having planned on guerrilla camping. I also took care of the hole in the rim tape by placing a couple small pieces of duct tape over the hole and a band-aid over that for a little added insurance. I figured that should hold at least till the end of the trip. I walked the bike over to the wooden ranch fence separating my adopted land from the highway right of way, and put the wheel back together and back onto the bike as it leaned against the fence. While working on this, three bike tourers coasted by, who I recognized as the Cox brothers Jaris and Jefferson, and Dave Dominguez. Hey! I yelled, to which they replied, and had to do a double take upon recognizing the face. What are you doing over there? I explained the situation, and and that I thought I was pretty close to being ready to head out, so they said they'd wait for me at Bodega Bay so they didn't get too far ahead if something was still wrong. Dave asked if I needed something to drink, and I hadn't realized how thirsty he was till he asked, so he threw me a bottle of gatoraid and I finished it instantly. Thank you Dave!
One hour later I was back on the road, and the bike felt pretty good. It was around 10:00 am, and I figured if the bike held up, I could ride just over a century and make it to SF by dark, or shortly thereafter. After riding for about an hour, though, I got another flat. I pulled out the tube, and the flat was exactly where it had been before, but I was confused because I could hear it but not see it, and the band-aid and duct tape were still sitting snugly over the rim tape hole. Standing there as I was, confused and frustrated, made for the ideal time for two more tourers to pull up, a guy and girl. They were nice, and offered the idea that perhaps the patch hadn't held, and perhaps they other one would work. They also gave me another, larger patch incase I needed it. We said goodbye and I hoped they were right. As I finished putting in the other patched tube, three more tourers pulled up, these guys from Ohio, and they had a spare tube, which I purchased in case I needed it later.
Heading up a hill after some cars passed me on a dangerous curve and nearly hit on-coming traffic, I felt like the police were looking out for me when a few minutes later I passed one of those cars, parked on the side of the road, with a cop car behind. Hopefully they got a ticket. I biked on, and wondered what the cop was doing when 10 minutes later I got pulled over by the cop. Without going into the details, the cop gave me a warning but no ticket for taking up too much of the lane, in a spot where I absolutely was taking up nearly the full lane but quickly approaching the dangerous corner curve where i could see there was nearly no shoulder. The cop said the car was 70% responsible for the near accident and that I was 30%. I maintain that I bare no responsibility. Want more details so you can agree with me? Post a comment.
So the tire was good again, but something felt off within another half-hour. The tires were fine, but the bike was wobbling again, and it was getting steadily worse, until I didn't feel safe going faster than 20 mph. The wobble was horrendous by the time I reached Bodega Bay, and there was no chance of going any further, so I went into the campground and got to work on truing the tire. I had plenty of emotional support, since there were lots of other bikers there already- Lindsay and Kevin who I'd met earlier, Charles and Ali, two couples from Montreal (on separate tours), Chris, Ethan and a different Chris, and an older tourer who's name I never got, for a total of 13 bike tourers, more than I'd seen at any other hiker biker camp. While this was exciting, no one had much experience with tire truing, and while Charles was able to lend me his truing tool, a little easier to use than mine on Kirk's multitool, he had no experience with truing tires, so I got to work. Within two hours I had it looking pretty good and feeling decently tight, so I adjusted the brakes, took it for a spin, it felt good, and the spokes were much tighter than they'd been after my last truing attempt. I still knew it would be a good idea to bring it in to the bikeshop in town the next day. Chris fed me dinner that night, and cereal in the morning. Thank you Chris! All in all, it was a big learning day and a day for meeting many other tourers and swapping a couple short stories, though I was mostly focused on working on the bike. No photos from this day.

Life Had Other Plans

Planned to get to Bodega Dunes State Beach, and it wasn't meant to happen. After a late start from the library in the cute town of Point Arena, the going was fairly smooth until I got a back tire flat, flat 4 of the trip. No problem, changed the tube out for a new one, but 25 minutes after getting back on the road I got another flat. Upon examination I found a hole in the rim tape on the inside of the wheel, and though it didn't look like anything was poking through- I'd noticed the hole earlier- investigation revealed that both flats were in the same exact spot, so apparently the hole was the culprit. By now it was around 5:30 pm, and not only was I out of spare tubes making it necessary to patch one of the leaky tubes, but my rear tire was getting out of true again, so that it was rubbing on both the frame and the brake. I'd only ever trued a tire twice, and in a shop with a truing stand, never in the field. Besides, although I suspected this was the problem, for all I knew there could be some other cause for the wobbliness I was experiencing. Time to call it an evening, but I was still 20 miles from Bodega Dunes State Beach. Riding was pretty sucky because of the rear tire rubbing and being so out of true that riding was starting to feel unsafe. I could try to hitchhike to Bodega Bay with my bike and bring the bike to the shop the next day, but I wasn't sure that Google Information was right about there being a bike shop in town since it wasn't mentioned in my book. On both sides of the road were LOTS of "private property" signs. I took 30 minutes to make up my mind, and finally took everything out of the trailer, threw it over the fence, then the trailer, then the bike, and I made someone else's private property my home for the night. It was one of my favorite campsites of the entire trip. Although i was only 30 feet from Highway 1, I was hidden by a small grove of conifers, and 200 meters out across golden fields was a drop-off of 200 feet to a rocky ocean. Several times throughout the night I heard sea lions, though I saw none when I woke up the next morning and walked out to the edge of the cliff.

KOA, biggest climb along the Pacific Coast and a Great Reunion

I forgot to get a picture of Carly and Tratam, so to all you blog readers out there, sorry! They were really nice to hang with. After my last entry, I rode to the Eureka KOA, and liked it much more than I expected. It had a homely campy family-friendly atmosphere, not the redneck one I expected. Not that all KOAs are the same, but I liked this one. Plus, they had a hot tub! Maybe this is standard for KOAs, but it was a very welcome surprise to me. Neither Carly nor Tratam felt the pull of the tub. Carly's more into sauna's, and we discovered we both really enjoyed the feeling of sweating for the first few minutes of getting into a burning hot car that's been sitting in the sun. But neither of them were so into hot tubs. Thankfully, Carly was into the idea of a shoulder rub exchange, and she was good! First and only one of the trip, and I've needed it every night. Thanks Carly! The hot tub closed at 10, and I made it in at 9:30, with water overflowing out onto the adjacent cement pool patio because of the 9 boyscouts and eagle scouts I shared the tub with. That was amusing, but they were called away after 10 minutes, so I had the tub to myself for 20 minutes...ahhhh.
That night I also met Alex, who was also headed to San Francisco on a bit of a time crunch, and was planning on making it all the way to Richardson Grove State Park the next day, 82 miles away. As Carly had pointed out that my trip plan actually meant I'd arrive in SF on the 15th instead of the 14th, I decided to consolidate three book days ("Bicycling the Pacific Coast by Spring and Kirkendall) into two days. That meant two tough days in a row, one 82 mile one and the next a 55 miler including a 2,000-ft mountain followed by a descent back to sea level and an immediate ascent back up to 700 feet. I decided to go for it.
I said goodbye to Carly and Tratam the next morning, and headed out onto 101, then getting off onto the Avenue of the Giants, which parallels 101 and crosses it a couple times before rejoining it. The forest was beautiful, though it didn't have the same mystery as the forest at Elk Prairie, since it had more traffic, you could sometimes hear trucks on 101, and the skies were clear so some sun penetrated the forest. Additionally, I had a ways to go so I was less relaxed than I had been arriving into Elk Prairie. Still, it was wonderful going through the Redwood forests- there's nothing quite like them. Several small towns dotted the woods, lots of wood carvings, a couple of drive-through trees both claiming to be THE world-famous drive-through tree. I biked through one. There was no one around to gather the $3 charge. Some of the wood-carving places had some incredible work I saw from the street, and it seemed that half of them were closed, either for good or for the week, I don't know which.
Got to Richardson Grove finally at 8:30 pm, once it was getting dark. I couldn't find the hiker-biker spots that were mentioned in the book, so I had to pay $17, which compared with the $3 or $4 I've been paying for hiker-biker spots was a lot. Took a shower, ate a bag of Kettle chips and some juice, and went to sleep, too beat to make dinner.
In the morning I was reading through the day's trip, sitting on a bench by the road when a tourer road by who I recognized as Alex, so I called him over. He had his bike shorts on his head, making him look like Jarjar Bink, which was apparently recommended to him as a way to dry wet bike shorts. We talked for a few minutes- he had been a competitive figure skater, competing around the world, but I think he was no longer doing that. Could have talked longer but time to go. I did find out he'd been at the hiker-biker spots, which were about 1/4 mile up the road. I'd breezed right by them.
Finally on the road around my usual time, 11 am. I felt pretty good despite the 82 miles. I've gotten more flexible from my regular stretching, which I've done usually at least once mid-day and again in the evenings upon arriving in camp. After 15 miles I arrived at Standish-Hickey State Park, and dined in their picnic area, finishing off my burrito ingredients and loading up for the ride ahead. Finishing my meal, I biked across the street to the little general store, purchased a brownie and as I ate it a tourer pulled up. Since Alex had mentioned there was another tourer at Richard Grove State Park named Chris, I asked this guy if that was him, and indeed it was. He also got a brownie, and we talked for a bit, then took off together, though it was pretty clear he'd be going faster up the hills. Within 30 minutes or so we passed Leggett, and started up the mountain. He took off, and I languished up the hill. Not having a granny gear, and only two gears up front, hills have been tough, though I manage. This one went on and on, and it was hot out, the kind of heat I'm used to in from Utah but rarely experience in the northwest. It actually felt like summer, instead of the intermittent spring/summerish weather of Seattle. 2/3 of the way up the hill I passed Chris taking a break in the shade. This windy road just went on and on, up and up, and was fairly steep too. It felt like it took all the training I've gotten from this entire trip to prepare me for this hill. Finally, the summit, and the exhilarating descent down to sea level, followed by another hill up to 700 feet, then another great descent and back to the ocean. What a great way to make the ocean totally fresh again! A couple days inland in the forests and hills and heat, and then descending back into the cool air and open sun of the coast. I took a break when I arrived, and talked for a few minutes with a couple Brits enjoying the summer vacation in the US and beyond. They'd flown to the LA area, bought a beater car, and drove it inland through Zion, Yellowstone and more all the way up to the Arctic Circle in Alaska. Amazing this car held up. NOw they were headed down the coast.
After all those climbs up the giant mountains, it was great to be at some flat land, but the coast here was hilly, up and down many times. I made it to Mekkericher State Park at 7:00, went for a short walk, checked out the small lake and determined that it was swimmable, quickly changed into my running shorts and went for the first swim of the trip, which felt fantastic.
I cooked up some dinner for Chris, myself, and this mid-40's dude named Paul who was just biking around the area with no destination. Made way too much food that we enjoyed by the warm fire Paul had created, and then as I was wondering what to do with it, in roll three more tourers in the dark, at about 10 pm, and it was Jaris, Jefferson and Dave! I don't remember if I mentioned them here, I think Kirk did, at least Jaris and Jefferson, but I hadn't seen these guys in over a week and was sure they were ahead of me, but there they were, tired and hungry, and enormously appreciative for the yummy food that was still hot. It was great to see them. Jefferson cooked us all some incredible banana pancakes in the morning.
Yesterday I finally left camp at 2:30 with Chris. I had to tweak my brakes which took a lot of time, and I was in no hurry to leave with the 42-mile day ahead. I managed to bike an average of 13 miles an hour for that, and Chris pulled into Manchester Beach State Park just 30 minutes after me. We hung out under a clear starry sky with Chance, who started his tour in San Louis Obispo and was riding north to see where along the Oregon Coast he might want to move to.
Took off this morning at 11, and am now writing from the library in Point Arena. Computer time's up in 5 minutes, so time to post some photos! Ah damn only time to post the seal photo. More to come!

Entering California, Redwoods, and Arcata

I'm now sort of travelling with two girls from Santa Cruz touring from Eugene back to home. Carly and Tratam- Carly, 26, has done 4 tours, including one from Astoria, OR to Savannah Georgea, and Tratam, a slight 28-year old who looks much younger, who is getting used to the hard work of her first tour. They've been good company for the last day and a half. They stayed at Harris Beach Campground, a beautiful place, campground, with great proximity to Brookings. I met them there though I was mostly hanging out with Troy and Pam, a couple that met in the Grand Canyon and have been touring since November. They're doing their traveling the open-ended way I prefer, but couldn't manage this time around. No photos of them, damn it. Or of Carly and Tratam, yet, but I'll get one.

So I entered California yesterday, which already seems like a long time ago. I'm in Arcata and tonight will find Carly and Tratam in the Eugene KOA. I hope they have a hot tub, but I'm not getting my hopes up!

Shortly after entering California, I passed a some elf storage units, which was perfect because I'm managed to gather way more elves than I intended on this trip, so I dropped them off there. I'll pick them up some time, when I have more time in my life to take care of elves.

Going out of order here, I really enjoyed hanging with Pam and Troy. They're headed north so hopefully they'll call when they get into the Seattle area. We enjoyed the Coconut Cruzan rum I got by mixing it with pineapple orange juice. I found the liquor store in town by asking the librarian. I thought that was kind of entertaining so I went to the nearest bank, biked up to the teller, and asked her where the nearest Wells Fargo was. She didn't think there was one in Brookings.

Took off early the next day, had a tough day with 68 miles, two large hills of about 1200 feet each, dropping to sea level between the two. But beautiful woods! Finally the giant redwoods! Partly we were on a busy and very dangerous stretch of 101, but then the route left 101 onto a very quiet road, hardly any traffic, very green, shaded, with giant trees everywhere. I biked in the middle of the car lane, and the setting put the breaks on my pace, as I peacefully coasted through the redwoods under a sky of low clouds. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip, no traffic, so peaceful, quite, and beautiful forest, riding carefree with time to spare before dark. I stopped at corkscrew tree (photo) and at "Big Tree," and took a photo of a more interesting tree on the way to the Big Tree. Had burritos for dinner, went to bed at 10:30.

Up at around 7 am this morning, I took off shortly after Carly and Tratam, and still hungry even after my 3 packets of oatmeal, I remembered the smoked and seasoned salmon I'd purchased the day before, which was in my front pouch. I was lured into the shop the day before by aroma of smoke from a small fire outside the Klamath Reservation shop, which also sold wood carvings. The salmon was caught by locals in the Klamath River. It made a perfect snack this morning as I bicycled out of Elk Creek Campground, admiring the scenery and elk.

Today, overcast, back and forth between 101 and a very nice coastal bicycle path, rode with Carly and Tratam once I caught up, we made it to Arcata around 4:00 pm, went straight to the food co-op, bad news for me, since once again I was much hungrier than I'd realized. Everything looked amazing! I wanted to try every kind of cheese they had. This place was expensive, so I was relieved when I'd finally made my choices and left. Bought a loaf of sesame-covered french bread, tofu dip that wasn't as good as Toby's, a small carton of peach kefir, a bottle of mango acai white tea, a can of beets for a snack, a can of corn and couscous for tonight's burritos (I have food left over from last night), a chocolate raspberry creamcheese muffin, a bag of sweet onion potato chips, and a box of raisin flax oatmeal packets for breakfast. Now I won't need to go food shopping for a couple days. Except that it will take more energy to haul all this food, so I may need to buy more just to keep hauling the food.

Well, 7 minutes left on this library computer! Cheers! Oops, the remaining photos- the guy with the station wagon is a wacky dude I met after taking the walk to the Big Tree- he built the moped with a mountain bike frame, said it went up to 30, powered up hills like a champ, and that he'd crashed it a bunch of times. Then he showed me his new french press, took a big gulp from it and spilled a bunch on his shirt. The welcome sign is great- it says "where horses have the right of way."