Ride Day 4

Today was a spectacular bike ride. My plan was to take Bart to Fremont and then a bus to where I stopped my ride last time. I thought the bus went all the way to Carmel but it was not running today so I had to climb Carmel grade yet again to start my day off. From the top of the grade I jumped on 1 and it was downhill for bit. I have learned that everything that goes down always comes back up when you are riding a bike. I had quite a bit of grade going up today to get from Monterey to Big Sur but every burn of the muscle was worth it.
The ride had so much gorgeous scenery that I burned out on all the magnificent views. Still managed to take 80 pics on a 45 mile ride though. All the pics will be on my Picasa web album later when I get some wifi. The Carmel area with its rocky shoreline and cliffs along the ocean just made one postcard view after another. My photography was kind of lazy because getting back on the road with all the hills today kind of wore me out a bit. I think I still got a few good pics out of the bunch. The bridge at Bixby Creek has been photographed millions of times but I stil had to take a few of it just to pass the time so I did not look like a tired old man dieing of a heart attack while trying to get his breath back after riding up the hills all day. But while riding today, I did look at some beautifull views without taking a pic.
Normally I like to get off the track and visit things like the Point Sur lighthouse but today I rode past all that type of stuff, Just too tired. I will get better after a few days on the road again.
I am camping at Big Sur and the only other person in camp is a 24 year old girl. She has been fun to talk to. She is riding her bike to San DIego also but then on to Colorado after that. So she is ambicious for her first ever bike touring. We talked for about an hour about her traveling and school and stuff. She had hippy parents and was raised on a sailboat. She shows it in her fierce independence and confidence. She was not throttled in your typical American educational setting.
There was snow on the hilltops as I rode down the coast. It will be cold tonight. I will be so tired I doubt if I will notice but if I get too cold at least there is another body in camp to warm up with. Yesterday it was hailing here along with rain and cold wind. Today has been sunny and warm all day so far. Fantastic restart as far as I'm concerned. Pics later when I get a good Wifi, this connection is too slow. More later....

Restarting my Ride Tomorrow.

I have all my IDs replaced now so I am ready to hit the road again. I am all packed up already. In the morning I will take the bus back down to where I turned around and my ride will continue. One asshole taking my wallet will not stop my ride or change my goals. That was just one jerk. I have met many many more nice honest friendly people than the one worthless worm who calls themself the "wallet guy."

I am looking forward to the ride for the next few days through the mountains near Big Sur and Gorda. Then it is fairly easy riding until just North of Santa Barbara at Purisma Hills and just South of Lompoc which is the highest point along the coast. The scenery should be tough to look at all day long. I will try to take pics but I am already passing a lot of beautiful views because there are just too many of them.

My health still sucks. My pain level has been consistently high. My ability to walk is very limited from all the nerve damage so I hope I don't break down or something out in the middle of nowhere. I would have to just wait to be rescued by some good samaritan coming along. I do trust in the basic goodness of humanity. It is just that the jerks like the wallet guy get more press than the good people in the world.

C'est la vie, shit happens sometimes, especially when on the road in new situations with unknown people around. A lot less shit happens to people that sit on a safe sofa watching tv for their life thrills. At least I try to live my life myself not vicariously through tv.

My next post will be from somewhere along the road, where ever I find a hotspot to post from.

Almost Ready to Hit the Road Again.

I am over and past with the lost wallet issues. I am moving on with my life again.

My bags are repacked and I am almost ready to go back to finish my ride. There is a small window of good weather coming up before another rain system is forecast to hit the central coast. I would like to get through before the system hits because riding a bike in wet weather is just too dangerous.

My health is still terrible but since it does not appear to improve with rest or treatment I am just going to go ahead and take off despite my high pain issues. While I ride the bike the pain is not such a big issue. It is when I get off the bike and try to walk that the pain starts to skyrocket and take away my mobility.

I am very broke for the next three weeks but will try to survive on what little cash I have remaining. There is not much to spend money on once past Carmel until you get down around San Simeon. It is mostly just riding and then camping at night. I will carry some food but will have to buy quite a bit of food as I go since I can't carry enough. Food will be my highest expense.

I will take pics as I go and try to post when I am able to. There is certainly some beautiful coastline along that stretch of California. The last time I was down in this area was about 40 years ago. People tell me not a lot has changed in that time.

Thanks for all the moral support I have received from everyone. I do appreciate it as it helps me keep pushing day to day in my fight with this pain...

More when I am able to post again which might be a while.

Some Bad People and Some Nice Ones

My ride from the Golden Gate Bridge to as far as Carmel was wonderful. I was extremely happy to be wandering the roads of the world again. The three day ride tired me out so I decided to take a couple of days off to rest before heading to Big Sur which is a long tough grade but worth every pump of the pedal.

I camped in Veteran's Memorial Park. My first day of rest I made the mistake of walking further than I am capable of walking. I really can not walk very far at all. Just walking to the bathroom a few times a day uses up all my walking abilities. When I exceed my walking limit, my pain starts to skyrocket upward very quickly. The more I walk the higher the pain ends up going. It is crazy because riding my bike does not harm me the same way as walking does. Normally when I have just barely gone past my max walking distance I will get the pain but a good night's sleep will relieve it for the most part. This time I went too far and the next morning my pain was still so high I could barely waddle to the bathroom from my tent. I took some narcotics and rode down the hill to the Peet's Coffee to do my internet and try to get past the pain. Instead the pain continued to climb to a very high and dangerous level. I took 60 milligrams more of morphine and waited an hour. The pain was still climbing so I took another 60 milligrams of morphine. This might sound like a lot to the medical pros out there but remember I have been taking morphine for about twenty years now and my tolerance is high. My pain leveled off in the next hour so I rode my bike back up the 700' hill to my camp. I was tired from the climb and heavily medicated when I entered the camp. I checked in and paid my 6 bucks for the campsite then went to my tent to rest. I had to use the rest room and got up with great difficulty and struggled to walk over to the bathroom. I wanted to charge my phone a bit since it was almost dead and there was electricity in the bathroom. I hung out in the front of the bathroom trying to ease my pain with some simple stretching and the like. I felt better and wanted to eat something so I carefully and gingerly walked to my tent. That is when I discovered my wallet was missing. I tried to retrace my steps but did not find it. There were only about six other campers around. I then tore my tent apart bit by bit to make sure it was not lost in the tent. I had either dropped it when I used the toilet or maybe when I put it in my pocket I did not push it all the way in because I was a bit clumsy from the drugs, or maybe it was in my tent and someone went in while I was obviously going to be in the bathroom for a while. Whichever thing happened I don't really know and never will. I did know that everything I had for ID and my credit and debit cards were all gone along with a few hundred dollars in cash. One of the six people in camp had my wallet but I did not know which one. In retrospect I think it was the overly helpful one that helped me look for my missing wallet. I will never know. I was disabled and broke in agonizing pain with no ID two hundred plus miles away from anywhere I could replace my ID or cards etc.

I went to bed that night in agony from the pain but also disappointed that I would have to take a break from my trip to recover from this loss. I had to return to the Bay Area and restore my ID and money access. To get there I first of all was given my six bucks back by the camp director. Then I packed my bike up and rode to Monterey. I sold some of my Cliff Bars and a few other small items to some other bikers I met. I took that money and bought a bus ticket to San Jose and then got a free ticket to Fremont Bart Station from the driver of that bus. I then spent five bucks taking BART to Oakland and rode my bike the rest of the way to Karen's where I will be staying for a few days.

So some bad people took my stuff and some good people helped me out. I just wish I could catch the bad one or bad ones. I like to get even not angry. But such is life good and bad. I will be back on the road soon enough.

Ride day 4 & 5

Title is misleading since I did not ride today other than around town. It is raining and blowing out so I took the day off from riding south.

I rode down the hill to the pier and hung out watching all the people for a while. The crowd was enjoying the sunny weekend before the rain hit. I ate a bowl of clam chowder in a loaf of hollowed out sourdough bread. I always like that combo. Then I went over to the aquarium. I had a hard time at the aquarium because it was a lot of walking and I really can not walk. It is a bitch losing mobility. I can ride the bike without problems but the minute I start walking my pain shoots up. I particularly liked the big tanks at the aquarium. I miss diving now when I see these sorts of things again. It is hard to dive when you are subject to having seizures. I ended up just sitting and watching the people walk by so I missed a lot of the aquarium but I enjoyed what I did see.

I went to the art museum next and it was small so not much walking was involved. I needed to pack in some calories so I had dinner at a sandwich shop in Monterey. I ate a big pastrami and swiss with grilled onions and a side of fries with a malted milkshake to wash it all down. I also stocked up on food for my ride down the coast since there are very few services on the road.

Last night it rained hard and was blowing and sprinkling this morning. I don't like the wind or the freezing cold rain. It seems the wind is always in your face when you are riding a bike and rain this cold can end up as hypothermia very quickly out exposed to the elements. Tonight it is supposed to blow hard then get down to 32 degrees. So in the morning I will get a late start waiting for the frost to go away. I don't want to have a slip from ice on the road. Coons were fighting outside my tent last night. They woke me up with all their loud growls and hissing during their fight or whatever they were doing...

I had a bad night with pain from my walking yesterday. I resorted to narcotics which I do not like to do. This morning my leg and my back still hurts but I am hoping it is better by tomorrow morning when I plan on riding to Big Sur. If the pain is not down then I may have to stay here another night. I will find out in the morning. Meanwhile I will rest up and enjoy Monterey but with no walking today...

Ride day three

I left Santa Cruz early this morning. After a ride for an hour along Soquel Drive I stopped for a big breakfast at a little cafe. Good food. I bought some cookies to take along on the ride.

I jumped on a bike route shortly after breakfast and followed that path all day. In some spots it was unused old roads but in other spots it was made for a bike route and ran along highway 1. For most of the morning I was riding though cities with tree lined paths and not much for views. Then the trail dipped down to the beach. I have learned that on my bike, what goes down always comes up.

I had a short grade leaving the beach wit lots of strawberry fields and artichokes. A few other items were growing here and there but not much else. The trail flattened out after a small grade and for a couple of hours I just had the fields for company. I helped a guy that had bike trouble on the road and got him running again. Maybe the karma will pay off for me somewhere along the road.

When I arrived at Marina I was going to spend the night there but changed my mind and continued on to Monterey. It was all dedicated bike paths. In Monterey I found my campgrounds at the Veterans Memorial Park and set up my tent for the next couple of nights. The campground is almost at the top of Carmel grade so everytime I go to town I need to climb back up to the campgrounds. Yesterday that ride was the worst part of the entire day. I was so tired I had to stop very often and even walked the bike in a few of the steeper sections. I am able to walk the bike but I always pay a price in pain later on and last night was no exception. I had high pain all night but by morning it was better. I am just very tired and sore now. So one more night of rest here in Monterey will not bother me at all since rain is also predicted for tomorrow. I do not want to ride the big grades in the rain because it is just too dangerous.

So today I am off to the Aquarium here in Monterey and I also need to stock up on food. I also sent a box of things forward that I won't need for the big grades coming up of Carmel, Big Sur and Gorda. I want to be as light as possible. More later...

Ride day two

I woke up this morning to everything covered in frost. That was sort of a surprise. I packed up my bike and headed to the coffee shop for my morning caffeine fix. I then headed South. The entire ride had fantastic coastal scenery that was truly epic. My legs were a bit slower today because I rode hard yesterday. My one big mistake was that I did not bring enough water. It was 40 miles before the first service along the way. I did not know that. My fault for not checking my plans close enough. I will try not to make that mistake again because it proved to be a bad mistake.

The day may have started off cold but the sun was bright and the temps climbed quickly to around 70 degrees f. I was sweating heavily from all the long grades and was using my water liberally. When the water started getting low I stopped at a state park to ask about where I could get water. She told me the next place was just before my destination of Santa Cruz. I was taken by surprise. I knew I was in trouble but I also trust that people would help me if it got critical.

I started conserving my water. That quickly proved to be a big mistake. I got thirsty and then my energy started to slowly go down. All of a sudden the hills that I had been climbing became mountains to my tired dehydrated old body. I had to stop frequently to rest and all that did was make it take longer for me to get water. Finally I decided to take an 8 mile detour to go to a small town off my route. I got my water and sport drink to try to rehydrate me. I never recovered from the dry spell. My energy stayed low the rest of the day.

I bought some Girl Scout cookies the night before and I was glad I had them with me. They were the Somoa ones with chocolate and coconut. High fat high energy food. I was still hungry. I dreamed of a big cheeseburger or a roasted chicken and lots of other foods. It just made it worse thinking about food.

The last few hills were brutal for me. I felt weak and light headed. Had to rest a lot. The twenty somethings in their fancy low friction Italian jerseys started to fly past me on their lightweight racing bikes. That just made me feel worse. I toughed it out. I had to get angry at myself and force myself to keep going despite the huffing and puffing and the burning weak rubbery legs.

I learned a lot today. Bring more water than you think you need. Bring more food. Spend more time learning about what is along the route. And trade my tired old body in for one of those twenty something ones.

I took a lot of pics because I had to stop and rest so often and I figured I would not look so much like a woooose if I took a pic each time. I won't post them all here just a sample of them. The scenery was worth every burning muscle and all the thirst issues.

Tomorrow will be a lighter day. I will post when I am able to find a wifi.