Ride Day 159 Carlsbad to San Diego

Last night I spent a wonderful night with my friend Jeanne in Carlsbad. She is remodeling her kitchen and we talked about that for a bit. We BBQed steaks on the grill for dinner. Great dinner, thanks Jeanne. The next morning we rode together to San Diego. I enjoyed riding with a local guide. Jeanne knew her way around so we took all the best routes to void traffic and still see the sights. Once in San Diego we had an early lunch. After a short discussion about whether to eat in Old Town where we know the food is average at best and fairly expensive or take a chance and pick a random street taco stand. We are both risk takers so we did the random chance. We chose well. There was a San Diego firefighter waiting for his meal and he ranted and raved about our choice as the best in 40 miles. Our burritos were good. After lunch we rode downtown and Jeanne turned around to go back to Carlsbad. I continued on to San Ysidro where I got a hotel room for the price of the KOA campground. Why they charge so much to pitch a tent I will never figure out. At my hotel I repacked my bags for the trip into Mexico. a few pics

Ride Day 158 Point Mugu to Oceanside

I was overly ambitious today. I did this same ride during my ride around the country and although it was tiring it was not that bad. But today it did not go as planned. After cleaning up after the rain during the night, I rode from Point Mugu into Malibu which was a long hard ride and I was going to stop for breakfast in town but instead I took a bus into Santa Monica. The bus ride was fun as I was the only passenger for the hour long ride due to a traffic accident that made traffic a nightmare. The driver and I were talking about everything under the sun and it was entertaining. When I finally said goodbye to him in Santa Monica it was starting to rain again.

I went into a restaurant to get a hot breakfast of eggs and the whole shebang with the hope that the rain would stop. It did. So I jumped back on my bike and took off. I did not get far before the rain came again. I asked around and took another bus, to the airport this time. It was a short ride but it got me out of the rain. I took another bus from there into Long Beach.

It was finally clear again so I stopped for some wifi at McDs and to my surprise they have a new wifi service that lets Bing and MSN work fast but slows everything else down to a crawl. What the hell is McDs thinking? Pissing of customers is not their usual style. I gave up and went out to get on my bike and my helmet was missing. The day was starting to get to me. I rode on without a helmet and about an hour later the rain started up yet again. This was getting old.

I stopped at a Starbux to wait for it to stop but it was looking worse and worse for better weather. I tried to find another bus and everyone told me a different story until finally I met a young lady that told me about a bus that goes to San Clemente which would get me out of the hell hole of LA. I went to where she told me and sure enough there was the bus. I took it to the end of the line with rain coming down the entire ride. Then I waited an hour in the rain for another bus to take me to Oceanside very close to Carlsbad which was my destination. I again had fun with the driver yacking the entire ride. In Oceanside I wanted to just get a hotel and rest up and clean up. My bike broke down on the way to the hotel. What else was going to go wrong next? I fixed the bike in the rain and checked into a hotel where I wrote this and now plan to sleep like a baby until 10 tomorrow morning. By the way I did not take a single pic today in the grey wet drizzling weather.

Ride Day 157 Refugio to Point Mugu

I got an early start from my campsite and headed down the coast. The riding was long slow grades then a quick downhill for most of the morning. It seemed like all uphill to me. I was getting tired but I pushed on. Finally around mid day there was a 2 mile long 7% downhill grade to glide down. The coast was pretty much the same all along and the colors were all browns until I got to Santa Barbara where suddenly there was green landscaping and flowers all over. I guess that is why the south part of the state needs all the water. I have never liked Santa Barbara and I still can not put my finger on why but the city just seems false and sterile to me. Their forced style of building in the flat roof stucco style they use is really not the proper building for the california Climate. Who am I to complain though, I really do not care much how other people build their homes.

I rode on right through town without bothering to even stop. I wanted to get to Point Mugu and it was a 90 mile ride. I finally cheated and took a bus through town and over to Oxnard which cut my ride by 25 miles. Glad I did it too cause I was tired when I got to Mugu State Park to camp. I set my camp up and was grumbling about paying $35 for it which is just too much money for a primitive campsite. As I was moping over the cash a single guy pulled into camp and I asked him if he wanted to share a site for the night. He said he did want to because it was too expensive.

I am glad he did because he was good to talk to. He was just ending a job back East working on a square rigger. We talked about his job and his plans after it. He is planning to take 3-6 months off and hike one of the big trails. We talked about that for a while and traveling alone as opposed to with others. Nice guy. Then around 6pm I took an allergy pill and in half an hour or so I was out for the night or I should say until my friend woke me up at 3am to tell me it was raining and I should put the fly over my tent so I didn't drown. I was glad he woke me up or my stuff would have all gotten soaked. a few pics

Ride Day 156 Lompoc to Refugio state beach

Yesterday I got up early and headed out on the road with the intention of going a long distance but in the end I was beat up after only 30 miles. Maybe it was due to my poor diet the day before but who knows, I just lacked get up and go energy. I stopped at Refugio State Beach for the night. I was there by 11am. After getting camp set up I went for a short ride around the beach. There were a few other campers I talked to that were fun to chat with. Then I went back to my tent and rested for 3 hours. The truth be told, I had a minor seizure in Lompoc and I could not ride very well. My muscle coordination was off and my timing and all of my muscles were just flat out sore. So I rested up all day watching whales blow offshore and lots of dolphins feeding and playing right at the beach breakers. I enjoyed watching it all. While I was resting in my tent the ground squirrels were trying to raid my food stash but I guarded it well. The birds were quicker and got a few morsels of bread. A fellow camper offered me a beer so I indulged while we watched the sun set. He was from South Africa. I threw a frisbe for a dog named Lola for about twenty minutes and had fun doing it. Then after the sun went down I retired to my tent enjoying being freshly showered and played computer games for a while before I went to sleep at an awfully early hour.

Ride Day 155 SLO to Lompoc

I really enjoyed my three days in San Luis Obispo aka SLO. It was great to see my friend Gary again and he was a perfect host while I was there. We watched the stuporbowl with some friends of his that were also bike riders. We did a lot of chatting about riding and touring while the boring football game went on. There were lots of good foods too and some FireStone beers from the local Buellton brewery.

This morning I left SLO with the intent to go to Solvang and stay at the RV Park in Buellton nearby. I changed my mind and first rode over to Avila Beach just to look at it. I had to backtrack 5 or 6 miles to get over to Pismo Beach and ride down CA-1. The ride took me past Vandenberg Air Force Base and over a few big 1000ft hills and lots of smaller rolling hills. Nothing was flat. The landscape is such a dull brown monotone that I am taking few pics, plus I have ridden this route before and took lots of pics. When I arrived at Lompoc it was still 26 miles to Gaviota Beach State Park where I wanted to get to but it was already 3pm so I changed my plans and stopped here. I plan on camping in River Park just outside of town on the road to Santa Barbara. Tomorrow I want to do the 60 miles to there and then maybe a few more cause I don't want to spend the night in Santa Barbara.

I first stopped at a Starbux in Lompoc and was talking to a nice retired couple. They told me what the road was like and stuff like and helped me decide to stay here in Lompoc. I also talked to a couple in Pismo Beach in the morning. they were very interested in my bike ride and took my blog address to look it up. I enjoyed talking to them while I ate my sweet roll and drank a cup of coffee. I need to go find my campsite now. More later.

Ride Day 154 Cambria to SLO

Last night I stayed in a hostel in Cambria and I got a bed in a dorm. Big Mistake. There was a very loud snorer in the room that made it impossible to sleep so for the second night in a row I was awake all night. I prefer sleeping in my tent. The worst part was when his sleep apnea made him go silent for a couple of minutes then he would erupt with a very loud gasp and snore that rattled the windows. I woke him up and asked him to roll over and he denied snoring but rolled over and went to sleep quietly but just as I was going to sleep he rolled over on his back again and went back to sawing logs with his chainsaw. I gave up and played games on my computer all night. In the morning I left for San Luis Obispo aka SLO with two other riders. I have done the ride before so I took very few pics. We rode to Morro Bay and had a bowl of clam chowder for lunch. After cruising the waterfront for a while we took the back roads to SLO. I was going to take 101 but changed my mind for some reason to the longer back roads route. The ride was fairly easy all day. There were a few hills to grind up but the scenery was good if you like dry brown drought conditions. The irrigated farms along the way with their bright green colors really stood out in contrast to the monotone color scheme of the scenery. My companion half my age complained that I ride too hard cause he could not keep up. I had to laugh at that. I can ride a long ways because I pace myself. I have ridden with many younger riders that all dash off early in the morning and go like hell up the early hills and stuff while I fall behind them. The funny thing is then at around thirty miles into a ride they all suddenly lose it and I glide past them and I can easily ride for another 70 miles while they are huffing and puffing and almost dead by 40 miles. Live and learn. I was the one jumping out hard not that long ago you know like thirty years ago. I am resting up and going over my packed things to make sure I want everything I am carrying. My weight is too high in my opinion. I should be able to get rid of half my stuff but I find it very difficult to do that. Later today I am going to read a couple of books and relax. My riding companion Emmanuel from Belgium is leaving today to continue his ride to San Diego.