Ride Day 150

Today I packed up camp in Brighton Beach State Beach and headed to Monterey. My trip to Santa Cruz yesterday went smoothly. I took BART and a bus for most of the way because that stretch of road going South from SF was the most dangerous part of all my riding so far so I just skipped it. No point in pushing my luck at getting through there safely twice. I had a fun bus ride. I sat next to a Canadian woman that chatted with me the entire ride. She peppered me with questions and I answered them and several other passengers joined in with the conversation. I enjoyed it and I think they did also. We were delayed for a few minutes due to a fire along the road on CA17 right at the top of the hill. I rode around Santa Cruz checking out the boardwalk and all the usual stuff then went over to Seabright Brewery for lunch of fish tacos and a beer. After enjoying lunch I slowly rode along the coast twisting and winding up and down the hills hugging the coast as much as I was able to. I stopped at Brighton State Beach for the hiker/biker $5 camping. It is a beautiful spot and in the off season with mid summer weather of 72 degrees with no fog it was even better. In the morning I tried to hug the coast on the ride to Monterey but it cost me a lot of double backing up steep coastal cliff side hills. It was a hard ride. I turned a short ride into one twice as long as it had to be just due to all my exploring. I talked to some surfers and they were excited that Mavericks Big Wave Event is going to be this Friday. I might watch it on TV but more likely will just look at the highlights after it is over. I watched thousands of acres of strawberries, artichokes, cabbage, broccoli and more roll by as I rode though all the coastal farms. When I got to Monterey, it was kind of busy for this part of the season due to the perfect weather and now Mavericks. I talked to some backpackers at Peets Coffee in downtown and they were going to stay in a cheap hotel. I ended up doing the same because it is a 900 foot climb up to the campground and I am beat after all the hills I did today. The California coast might be the most beautiful part of all the bike riding I have done but you need to pay the price of lots of big hills and mountains to see it. I am willing to pay the price.

Heading South From San Francisco Today

I am heading South today on my bike. I was going to write a nice long blog about my leaving but I spent the last hour just trying to sign into my google account. They changed their sign in page and no longer offer the sign in to a different account option. It took me an hour to figure out how to sign in using multiple accounts that are not hooked together. I hate updates, all updates. They are never an improvement for me just for the service that is updating. There are no instructions for the changes and no help available for problems. Oh sure they have help pages but they are usually worthless. The only way to get the scoop on all the changes is to search the net for geeks that figured it out and explain it clearly. But screw Google for their inconsiderate deletion of the multiple accounts option just so it makes their tracking of the info easier for them. My plans are to just head South slowly and to enjoy the ride. I have already done this ride, at least to the Mexican border that is, so I will be posting fewer pics this time. If you want to see those pics just use the archives to the right of this text and look up Ride Day 1 through Day 15 or so. When I get to the Mexico border I plan on continuing south down the Baha peninsula to Cabo then taking a ferry to the mainland and going south some more. Where I stop or turn around or whatever happens is up in the air. My goal is entertainment and adventure and if the trip turns sour then I will end it wherever that may be. No plans and no expectations just winging it. Sounds like fun right? There is very poor cell phone service along the coast and few places with internet so I will be out of touch for days at a time but just keep checking and I will catch up with my posting when I am able to. Now I am out of here to hit the road. Next update will be from Santa Cruz I hope.

Everything must come to an End

I just shipped my bike back to San Francisco. That means my ride is officially over. I came up about 800 miles short of making a complete loop around the country. That loop is mostly dense urban riding that does not really interest me very much. It is also very expensive to ride in that area from Maine down to Virginia. Hotels are almost all over $100, even ones that would be considered one star elsewhere. Campgrounds are also too expensive along the East coast. The least expensive ones are over $30 and most of them are closer to $50. One campground wanted $61 plus tax for a primitive tent site. WTF??? I much prefer the West coast for riding where there are hiker biker camps about every 40 miles or so. I can easily keep my costs to $30 a day in the West but along the East coast it costs more than twice that per day. I did enjoy my tours around the state of Maine. It is a very beautiful state. The moose were entertaining. The roads were not always very bike friendly with little or no shoulders but the traffic played nicely for me. I am kind of upset that the ride is over now. The really weird thing is that now my body hurts all over. I did not ever feel this bad while I was riding even after my hardest days of riding. I am not sure why I hurt so much now after three or four days of not riding. I would have thought that I would feel better after ending the ride not worse. My joints are all stiff and sore. I am getting lots of cramps and I have had three seizures in the last week. Yesterday I had a pretty hard longer lasting seizure that is the reason why I hurt so much today. I had to immediately check into the nearest hotel after it hit me. I soaked in a hot tub and rested in bed while trying to stretch a little bit to loosen up my tight muscles. I did not use any narcotics just Tylenol for inflammation. I spent my time packing my smaller items to ship them home so that I can travel light on the airline. After mailing all that stuff back I toured around Portland all day today. No pics for some reason. I just did not feel like taking any. I guess I am a little depressed over the end of my ride. I am looking forward to seeing my friends and family again when I get home tomorrow. I miss the dogs and cats too. They are always happy to see me return. I will post a couple more updates as I wind down after this beautiful ride but then this blog is over. I will continue to blog about life in general at my old blog: jimfrogs.blogspot.com That blog has been about my travels over the last 45 years and I plan on continuing to travel even if only around town. I end with some pics from Baaahaabaaa on a grey wet day. More later.

Maine more pics