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.

I wish we all could be California Girls

When I realized that I was going to leave my job before starting this trip I thought that maybe in some way being on the road for a month and a half would give me the chance to reflect on what might make me happy to do as a career. And with this blog I've started to write more which is something that I've always loved. Walking around the city yesterday I made a mental note of the things that I like to do (in ascending order):

Shopping
Checking my email
Writing my blog
Riding my bike

Shopping is something that I've been good at since living in Madrid where the temperatures were so hot that there was nothing to do but duck into the air conditioned stores where there were so many fantastic clothes to buy! And there were the "rebajas" sign everywhere which I originally mistook for the word "regalo" (gift), but that really means SALE. Gift, sale? What's the difference?

Walking around San Francisco I've found that my bike trip wardrobe has expanding from half a stuff sack of clothing to an entire load of laundry. And a new pair of shoes. Which I will be mailing home to myself - a REGALO for the end of my trip!

So how do these all transform into one really great job? I'm not sure that they do. But if I can ride my bike 1500 miles down the coast surely I can figure out how to make it work.

San Francisco Treat

Yesterday was one of the coolest days of my trip so far. I said goodbye to Julie in Bodega Bay and started riding again. My legs felt great! Those two rest days were definitely a good idea. The ride took me down the road, to a bike trail, through a State Parks, and back out to the road again. I entered many small towns outside of the city on the other side of the bay always heading towards the Golden Gate Bridge. This was the first time I'd ever ridden towards a big city before, and I finally felt like I was in California. The sun was shining, the air smelled like flowers, and everyone was out on the streets. Some smiling, some just out.

So I pedaled along feeling happier and happier. I listened to California Girls on my ipod and cruised along. I was happy to see many signs directing bikes where to go, and also many road bikers waving at me as they passed. I could tell that even though I wasn't quite to the city yet, it was a place that I would love. And so I continued working my way to the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge that I could cross ON my bike.

And so of course when I got to the bridge I had to take a lot of pictures.



And have other people take pictures of me too.



And then take some pictures of the city. Because it was so cool!




And it's all on a hill. Or lots of hills. Oh, wait....hills! Yes, I rode my bike up some hills in San Francisco, going into town, but I tried not to ride up too many because, MAN this city has some killer ones.

When I got into town I rode over to Caren's club (Mohitos) and got directions to her house. From there I decided to take my bike on the Bart instead of trying to navigate the roads. So instead I took my bike and trailer onto the train which involved so much work that maybe it would have been better to just ride.

In the city there are so many cars and buses and the bikes just ride past them as they pause in traffic. I actually feel safer on a bike than in a car now. Or at least, maybe just the last car I was in. Which was a taxi from Mohitos back to Caren's house last night after going with her roommates to see a band play there. Our driver was the craziest guy. Swerving all around cars and buses and people, and every time he would brake we'd know it in advance from a loud shrieking sound of his brakes, and that was followed by a thump from something in the trunk which I guessed outloud MIGHT be the body of some one that he hit recently, but when we asked him he said it was a bird cage. I'll believe that only because I want to.

And now I have a good amount of time here in the city to explore and visit all of the places that I want to check out. Starting with Zara. My very favorite store in the entire world. It's the only thing that I love more than ice cream. And bikes.

Day #..

You know, at the moment I'm done with counting days. It's a good way to be organized, but I'm not sure how organized I want to be anymore. Maybe counting days and miles and minutes and all of that isn't the way that I want to experience this trip. Or maybe (and more likely) I'm too lazy to figure them out anymore since a day doesn't really fit with the way that I'm living. It's more like...a town or a friend, or an incident that marks the passage of time for me.

So here goes my first unorganized installment!

After leaving Arcata yesterday morning I noticed that although there was still a fog covering the bay it was nice and warm. Which made for great riding conditions. I set out towards Eureka (the Humbolt county seat) and made it about 15 miles (5 miles past Eureka) when it began to drizzle. No big deal, I thought. I can take a little mist. And then the "mist" starting to come down a bit thicker and faster until it was a full out dump of rain and THAT I am not cool with. So I ducked into this small town called Fields Landing that was SO small there was one convenience store and that was it. There was a cafe, but when I asked the attendent at the store when it would open she replied "never."

So there I was sitting on a bench between an ashtray and the trashcan surrounded by flies looking at the pouring rain. Quit the predicament. Until I saw this friendly looking vehicle drive by.

Upon which I decided that it would be best for me to load my bike and hop on board in hopes of at least making it to a town where I could sit inside and read.And so I was dropped off in the town of Scotia at the beautiful Inn (which I don't have a photo of) where I had the brilliant idea to call my good friend Julie to see if maybe...maybe she'd want to swing up from Mendicino to pick me up? And the good friend that she is...she agreed! So there is my rest day. I haven't had one yet, and for the last four days I've been feeling it.

Five hours after that call I was sitting in Mendo with Julie at this really nice restaurant. Ahhh...so much better than the trash can and ash tray situation. As for today, I'm going to camp out tonight and then head to San Francisco in the morning. I'm about two or three days away at the moment, so the trip has speeded up a little, but that just gives me an extra day in SF to hang out and explore the city. I can't wait! Look forward to more biking adventures tomorrow. I'm off to the beach!

Day #10 and Day #11

Day #10 Gold Beach to Redwoods Youth Hostel
The ride on Day 10 took me to the Southern tip of Oregon where the scenery still holds its own and does not disappoint. In the morning I left Gold Beach and rode up a big, big hill. When I got to the top I thought my typical big hill is over thought, "you ROCKED that girl!"

I stopped in Brookings, OR for some fish and chips and an ice cream sundae. I debated the sundae, but figured that it was ok. And then a few miles after lunch I came across this fantastic sign!
Oh yes, I successfully crossed in California! I had planned to stop in Crescent City for the night, but upon arriving there I decided that it was NOT a place that I'd want to stop. It was pretty run down and not that friendly. So I took my chances and rode on. The road started to go up. "Ok, I can do this!" I thought to myself. The road continued to go up. And up. And up 1200 feet above sea level. And reading those numbers on a screen might not mean much, but let me just tell you - it was a wicked tough hill. A long one. It went up more than I have ever seen a hill go up before. And then it went up some more. And finally when I thought that maybe this would be the first time on my trip that I sat down and cried, I pushed on and eventually...started to go down. And what did I find at the bottom of the hill?The Redwoods Youth Hostel. Awesome. Totally awesome. There was a 100 plus years old house that was built by settlers in California. And it had been turned into a hostel. Where I booked a bed, cooked dinner, and promptly fell asleep at 9 pm.
Day #11 Redwoods Youth Hostel to Arcata, CA

Today was a moderate day that took me from the hostel to Arcata where I'm now staying with Beth! Her house is super cool, as is the town of Arcata. On my way I passed through the Redwoods National forest. Incredible. The forest is magical. The trees are...bigger than any trees I've ever seen before.

This is a whole new part of the country that I've never experienced before and it's amazing! The next few days will take me up and over a huge hill, and then down closer to the Bay area. I expect to be in San Francisco in about six days! I'm looking forward to the places that the road will take me until then...

Day #9 Bandon to Gold Beach, OR

Today was another day on the bike, like every day of my life over the last week and a half. I've completely gotten into the routine by now. Wake up at 7:15, get ready, on the road by 8, stop an hour later for a quick breakfast, keep riding until lunch. Depending on the morning ride I usually have another few hours after lunch. I typically ride until around 2 pm.

Just like today. And when I'm on the bike I think of many things. One of the things that pops into my head is what the hostel owner in Elma said to me after I had eaten dinner and taken a shower and unpacked some stuff. He said, "do you feel like a human again?" He was referring to me being off the bike and in comfortable clothes, fed, etc. But the line sticks with me and sometimes it will randomly be there in my thoughts. Do you feel like a human again? Every day I have moments where I feel more and more human. But strangely, these feelings of humanity are more often found when I'm riding than when I'm not.

At the beginning of my trip I thought to myself, "won't it be funny when I can look back in history and say 'remember that time I rode from Seattle to Mexico'?" Like it was a casual thing that I did, like "remember the time we went to see that movie?" or "the time I ate so much candy at Halloween I threw up." It will be another event in the history of my life, the history that has made me the human that I am up to this point.