Bike Trip anniversary

One year ago I returned from an amazing journey.

Over the past year there have been many times when I went back in memory to those six weeks spent on my bike. I think of how excited I was everytime I had an email from a friend, or a comment on my blog. I think of how calming it was to repeat the pedal strokes for miles and miles and miles. During the winter I thought of the ocean, and the sun that found me when I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and rode through the Presidio into San Francisco. I thought of sitting in the sand resting my knees. Now I think of the nights spent in my single tent, reading a book by Lance Armstrong with my headlamp before falling asleep at 9 pm. I think of the smooth pavement I was always hoping for, and the feeling I had at the end of each day when I would say to myself "you did it." Each day, I did it! I accomplished my goal!

Often I tell people about my trip, to me it is the most significant recent experience I've had in my life, and maybe my greatest accomplishment to date. But I don't know what to tell people other than the logisitical details. Yes, I rode from Seattle to LA, yes I went by myself. No, I never got one flat tire, no I never felt unsafe or lonely. Yes I would do it again, but have no plans to in the near future. What I can't explain outloud is what that trip did for me in my life. And maybe because it has taken a year to realize, and I'm still trying to figure it out. I can say that when I am sitting at my desk working I can think about the first hostel I stayed in, and how I felt like sleeping in a bed on the first night was cheating, but totally worth it. I can say that I thought that I would deal with my issues (come on, we ALL have issues) while riding everyday with nothing to do but think. But in the end, I found myself only thinking "this road is smooth," or "this hill is long, get over it!" or (mostly) "watch out for glass or nail or rocks or debris in the road - don't roll over it!" Because when I found myself with myself, and everything else melted away, I was a happy camper.

LA to St. Louis

The other night I had a dream that I was going to ride my bike from Seattle to LA. I pictured how many miles I would have to go, how many different campsites I'd stay at, how many new people I would talk to every day, how much ground I would cover, and how long I would be looking at the shoulder of the road for small rocks and pieces of debris to avoid. And then when I woke up I realized that I'd done it. I'd done the trip. And it was like a dream that had come true.

So that's where I'll leave it. Accomplishing the dream. I hope to realize many more dreams in the near future, and throughout my life. If you are lucky enough to know what your dream is, there is nothing to stop you from going for it. The most difficult part I've found is to find the thing that you are passionate about. And once you do....I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Write up in the Monterey Weekly

A few weeks ago I got a call from Walter at the Monterey weekly. He was interested in talking about my trip, and our conversation resulted in a short piece that came out today. Yay! Thanks Walter!

http://montereycountyweekly.com/issues/Issue.06-21-2007/831/Article.831_mini

Ventura

This morning I woke up a bit later and prepared to journey on to Ventura. I ate the free hostel breakfast of pbj on wheat toast, and made one for the road (lunch) as well. After freeing my bike from the hostel storage locker and attaching my trailer I set off down the road. I followed the coast for a few miles before turning inland. The sun was out, the weather was warm, and I didn't have the slightest feeling that I would faint. Things were good.

As I've been touring South I've decided to change the original plan of the trip. At first I had intended to go to Mexico and hang out in Ensenada for awhile, but after realizing that I didn't really want to cross the border on my bike I decided to end the trip in LA with an Erin/Alexis reunion (one that will be so famous they'll talk about it for months). Getting to LA is a bit of a hassle, so tomorrow I'm packing up my bike in Ventura and finding an alternative mode of transportation for that 70 miles of road heading South. Which means that today was my last day of riding my bike. My LAST day! I can't believe that I'm already done with this bike ride. I want MORE. More, more, more. I don't want it to be over yet. I feel like I've been doing this, in this mode for so long that I don't really know what else to do or how else to do anything other than ride.

Everything has been focused on the simplicity of pedaling, camping, hosteling, living, visiting with friends, and searching for the feelings of freedom that I've finally become comfortable with. So what now? I'm not sure. And I guess that for now that's ok. As long as I'm moving forward in the right direction, I guess it's alright to be unsure about where I'm going to end up, and to trust that it will be somewhere amazing.

Santa Barbara

I love Santa Barbara! I'm finally in Southern California! Yesterday I had a lot of time to think about a question that has been coming up a lot lately from people asking me about this trip. It's a question that I acknowledged at the beginning of my journey, but never really took the time to inspect. And so finally I gave it some thought. The WHY. Why are you doing this? Why are you riding your bike so far? Why are you going solo? I almost don't want to answer this question because the thought of WHY has never really crossed my mind. It was just something that I knew I wanted to do. But why did I want to do it? And why by myself? The beginning of that answer is that I wanted to set out to accomplish a physical challenge, see new parts of America, and push myself by myself, to be stretched physically and mentally and to rely on my courage, spirit, and drive to move forward. The more in depth and fundamental reason is that I believe that in life the route that we take influences the events that happen. The way we travel through time, the people, places, and experiences that we come into contact with are all a part of a linear set of events that will be determined by our choices, and our attitudes. So smile and you'll start to feel better. Get on your bike and ride up a hill and you'll know that you can do anything. Build up yourself in a positive way and you will attract positive people and come across positive experiences in your life. Better yourself and you can be better to people that you love.

So much of my life is planned. For once I wanted to do something that although I had a direction (South), I had no idea what would happen along the way. There was no way to predict. And now that I'm almost done I have to say that I still don't have a total understanding of what it is that I've accomplished. It's too big right now. And I'm loving it!

And on that note, I must exit this chair because I totally burned my butt at the beach today. Man, that's going to smart tomorrow as I ride to Ventura.

Monterey Bay, CA

Over the last few days I've been hanging out with Jenny (who flew from Boulder to Santa Cruz to hang out and check out the Bay area) in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. We explored the city, hung out on the beach, and met up with a friend of a friend who lives in Santa Cruz (Sarah) who rode her bike from Honduras to San Simeon, CA. It was really great to hang out on the beach last night with a few fellow Santa Cruzers who love bikes like I do.

This morning I said goodbye to Jenny and Jamie - who was a fantastic hostess in Santa Cruz - and headed off once again on my bike. I got a late start (10:30), but I only had 45 miles to go, so I took it pretty easy. Riding today I passed through many strawberry fields and saw lots of people working in the massive gardens picking berries and other fruits. At lunchtime every one stopped working, got out their lawn chairs and their boom boxes and started blasting music and hanging out. Working in the sun, and enjoying their day...I was happy to see so many people

enjoying themselves.

Throughout the day I would see this sign and know that I was on the right track. It is my favorite sign in all of California.

I arrivd in Monterey in the afternoon to be greeted by Erika. And guess what? She has a GUEST bedroom at her house! My very own bed!! For the first time in a month! How much better does it get?

Santa Cruz

Since I've been gone for such a long time (it seems to me), here is a picture of me sitting in Dolores Park in San Francisco. It's a beautiful park with a great view of the city. I was sad to leave yesterday, but also ready to journey on.



After an entire week in San Francisco it was time to move on to my next destination - Santa Cruz! I'd been to Santa Cruz a few years ago and loved the town. I equate it to Boulder with an ocean. So what's not to love?

Early in the morning I packed my BOB and loaded it to my bike, got dressed in my touring garb and headed out the door. It was a beautiful morning, and pretty warm. The sun was out, no clouds in the sky. Perfect for biking. So I thought. I headed towards Golden Gate Park to pick up a biker friendly route. As I stopped at the top of a hill for a red light I began talking to a fellow biker. And then all of the sudden I didn't feel so well. And I thought to myself "uh-oh, I think that I'm going to faint, and that will be really embarassing to do in front of some one that I don't even know." And the next thing I knew I opened my eyes after what felt like a long and relaxing sleep to see the biker and another guy standing over me. Yep, I fainted. I never have before in my life, and it was the strangest thing. So I sat with Lance (the best stranger EVER) and waited for the medics to show up. They did, I talked to them for awhile, we decided that I needed to drink more water and rest. After a long conversation they told me that even though it's not their policy, they'd give me a ride back to Caren's house. When I left the ambulance I wondered if maybe I should have given them a tip?

I got back to Caren's and she got me some Gatorade - what a good friend! Then I had to think about my game plan. What would I do next? I knew that I wanted to leave the city, and I also knew that I didn't want to get back on my bike right away and possibly faint again. There are no trains or buses that go to Santa Cruz, and I've never from experience that carrying a BOB and bike together on the train is NOT fun. So I called around to various car rental places and found one for a reasonable amount that I could drop in San Jose (near Santa Cruz). And that became my new plan.

When I received the car I remembered just how much I don't like to drive. It's so fast! And I was so sad to drive by the road that I would have been biking on and see that there was a beautiful shoulder perfect for me to cruise up and down. But there is no use in reflecting on that because, what's the point? The thing to do is get back on in a few days and head to Monterey. Which will be exciting. Until then, I'm going to drink lots of fluids and hang out with Jamie and Jenny in Santa Cruz.

Sightseeing in SF

For the last few days I've been exploring San Francisco, getting to know the city. It's a great city for walking, and the public transportation system is pretty efficient and easy to learn if you're paying attention.

Yesterday Caren and I went to Golden Gate Park to hang out, go up to the observation tower in the de Young museum to see a panoramic of the whole city, and check out the Japanese Zen Gardens and the Rose Garden.

In the Rose Garden there were so many different species of roses, each had its own personality. I imagined that there was wedding rose, prom rose, hyper-colored rose, prettiest girl in the room rose, so 80's rocker rose, I know I'm perfect rose...the list goes on.



And when the breeze would float through the rose garden (as the breeze often does in this city) all of the different scents of all of the roses would pull together and the smell was amazing. Just like you'd expect a lot of roses to smell.



This is a pretty cool city. Today I toured around everywhere, and of course today is the one day that I didn't bring my camera. Here are some of the highlights that I've enjoyed in SF:

* Union Square - yes, it's just a plaza, but something always leads me back here. It's kind of like the city center for me
* Boat tour around the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz - unfortunately the actual tour of Alcatraz was sold out today (it does that on the weekends), but the boat tour was pretty cool.
* North Beac - I just like this area
* Riding the MUNI and the BART - just because I figured out how to do it, that's why I think it's cool
* Golden Gate Park - it's HUGE and there is so much going on. The primitive botanical garden was super rad with all sorts of really hardy plants.
* Haight Ashbury - historically it's cool, otherwise I found it to be kind of comercialized in an anti-comercial way.
* China Town - is it even just a section of town? I swear it's big enough to be its own little universe inside the city. It's like being in China (I'd imagine). I wanted to buy all sorts of weird foods there. But I didn't.
* Fisherman's wharf is a novelty, it's great to be by the water but the scene is kind of fraternity for some reason. It kind of reminded me of the Landing in St. Louis.

More touring tomorrow! Tomorrow I'm heading to Berkley to check out the campus, and also looking for the City Lights book store so I can stand in front and take a picture. I should look for a beret to wear, that would be a good prop.