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.