Day off in San Quintin MX

It is only 7 in the morning here in San Quintin MX. I have been up and around for hours already. Today is a day off from riding just so that I can acclimate myself to being in Mexico now. I am camping in an RV Park called Don Eddie's with the Utah couple Pat and Gary that gave me ride yesterday. My Spanish, which has always been terrible, is extremely rusty right now and I am trying to remember words and phrases so I can communicate better. I need to buy a new pocket dictionary soon. I also really need to take some more classes. The worst part for me is my hearing is poor and in Spanish you need to hear all the syllables of the words to know what is being said and I can only hear and understand about 50% of it. It is the same for me in English only hearing 50% but in English I can quickly fill in the missing words to figure out what people are saying. Much more work is needed on my part to get so that I can speak better Spanish.

The last few days while I was getting ready to enter Mexico I had a feeling of excitement in my body and mind about entering Mexico on a bike. I loved that feeling. It is very hard for me to get excited about anything these days because I am just too jaded being the grumpy old man that I am. Now that I am in Mexico those feelings have already disappeared and I am back to my normal routine life devoid of excitement. Don't get me wrong I love traveling in Mexico or anywhere for that matter and I enjoy myself tremendously but I am just never excited any more.

Today I plan to soak up a bit of sun on my lilly white body and try as much as I can working on my Spanish with the locals. They all speak some English so I can ask what words mean and things like that. They are being very cooperative with my feeble attempts to speak Spanish. They tell me I need a long haired dictionary to learn to speak Spanish. I could go along with that way of learning but where do I find this long haired dictionary that they speak of? I will try to add more to this later in the day and hopefully a few pics.

Ride Day 160 SD to San Quintin MX

I rode over to the Mexican border and I had a problem, the bike path to the border was closed. So I went over to the pedestrian bridge made famous in No Country For Old Men and there was a big sign NO BIKES. The only other way to enter Mexico was on the freeway so I took it. When I rode up to the gates, the border officials did not like it one bit that I was riding my bike on the freeway. I explained the situation with the closed bike path and the big sign on the pedestrian bridge and they allowed it. While arguing with them I met a couple from Utah and they told me they would give me a ride to Ensenada. I jumped into their RV and we were off. I ended up riding all the way to San Quintin which was much deeper into Mexico than I had intended to ride by vehicle but I am glad I did. My RV hosts Pat and Gary, were very nice hosts and fun, easy to talk to people. The next thing I knew we were in San Quintin. I set up my tent in our shared site and went to eat and have a beer in the restaurant nearby. We ran into another couple from San Diego and we all sat around chatting for a good time. Great day with more of the wonderful people I meet on the road. a few pics shot out the window...

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.