More Pix, Day 13: Buellton - Brentwood

Here I am, at 8:30 a.m. on Halloween morning, ready to ride, with my Halloween decoration no longer wrapped around my neck but rather around my frame's top tube, where it belongs. I actually bought that thing in Japan and had been schlepping it in my bag the whole time, so I was happy to finally bust it out and make room for some who knows what. I also put my full-finger gloves on for the first time on the ride. I didn't necessarily need them, but I figured that was probably my last chance to use them. After all, if I hadn't used them, I would have been upset with myself for bringing them along and wasting more of that precious space in my bag. Besides, they added to the smurf look. Poor Joe. He had an even better decoration, a really scary mask, but he left it outside of a restaurant later in the day so he couldn't wear it in the evening when we went trick-or-treating. And Jody, well, his costume was pretty boring. He dressed up as a bike rider...

As you can see, we were all bundled up pretty well that morning.

About 20 minutes later, we arrived in Solvang, a quaint little Danish village that I had never heard of, despite its obvious popularity, and were ready for breakfast. Check out the fabulous pancakes I had!














And here's a look at what Jody had. Yummy for my tummy! Ideally, we would have eaten breakfast in Buellton before we started to ride, spent the night in Solvang and eaten this breakfast anyway, or picked a place much farther down the road to stop, since riding for only 20 minutes before stopping can throw off your rhythm. Again, though, you have to just chill and go with the flow on these mega-rides, and that's exactly what we did. Enjoy the moment. Worry about what comes next next.














Not even three hours after breakfast the weather had improved dramatically!
















And an hour later, it was time for a late, light lunch at Tinker's, in Summerland. One of the highlights of my trip to America was definitely the food, and here you can see why. If I could make that burger re-appear right now, I would have it and I'd eat it, too!

Japan borders the Pacific Ocean, too, but somehow the view from California seems so much nicer!

I took this picture at 4:45 p.m., somewhere in Point Mugu State Park, I believe, about 30 minutes before I crossed into Los Angeles County. Somewhere around here, I lost Jody and Joe and didn't see them again until just before Santa Monica. That means I probably rode about 25 or 30 miles by myself. Thanks to the great weather, amazing views, and good roads, however, I was incredibly relaxed along most of that stretch. When I finally did catch up to the other two, it was already after dark. All three of us figured I was about 5 or 10 miles behind, but it turns out that I arrived only about a minute after Jody and Joe sat down in a parking lot to wait for me. Unless that is, they were pulling my leg...

We spent the night in Brentwood with Jody's friends Laura and Lawrence. (Both of them liked me...) The running gag, thanks to Home Slice, was that they lived next door to O.J. Simpson. I fell for that one hook, line, and sinker... Anyway, that night we had Mexican food, for the umpteenth time on the trip. Luckily, unlike white rice (the food, yo, not the man!), burritos never get old, especially when they are this good. (OK, OK, I should have taken a better picture. I realize that now. But you can take my word for it. That thing had flavor!) And thus ended Day 13.

More Pix, Day 12: San Simeon - Buellton

Despite our latest arrival yet (12:30 a.m. or so) the previous night, we got a relatively early start in the morning. Here's a shot of Jody and Joe (that dot on the road way ahead of him) at 9:30 a.m. You can see that Jody's back to wearing both leg and arm warmers, but at least the sun is shining and it's not raining. That morning, I remember thinking how happy I was to have survived the typhoon and how pleasing it was to ride in "normal" conditions again. I guess you could say I was back to "Oh, yeah, I'm definitely going to make it to Tijuana." mode.

I'm telling you, what a difference a day makes. Here's a picture of me in front of the Rabobank in Cayucos. We'd already ridden about 25 miles and we'd only been on the bikes for 1'20". Not bad, eh? (Too bad the bank was closed. I really wonder what the reaction of the employees would have been when they laid eyes on me. Heck, I wonder if any of them are even from Holland. I guess I'll just have to do the ride over again someday and time it so that I arrive on a work day...)

Two and a half hours later, the weather was as good as it gets. Here I am, riding behind Joe, heading into Pismo Beach.

We stopped for lunch at this place that Jody picked out, Hoagies. Awesome choice, dude! You can't even imagine how relaxed I was feeling while I was waiting for my food. The previous night, I was riding through Hell, but here I was, sitting in warm sunshine, just a few hundred feet from the beach, surrounded by palm trees, watching people walking around in shorts (and jeans...) and wearing shades (or not...) and carrying surfboards (trust me!)... It was awesome! I guess this thought sums up how I felt: "Holy cow, I'm back in southern California!"

And then my food came! Granted, it wasn't the healthiest food choice in the world, but it was so yummy! And so pretty!

I don't remember exactly how we ended up on this road with that monster hill ahead. (I realize it doesn't look like a monster hill in this picture, but it was. Believe me. She was short, but quite steep.) I think Jody decided to go with the alternate route here. Or else the alternate route was the one we didn't take, and this was simply the lesser of two evils.

This is another of my photos that won't win any prizes, but if I hadn't taken it, I probably would have forgotten the saddest moment of the whole ride. The police car pictured here is the second one that zoomed by us. We were all obviously wondering what could be going on. A little later, we found out. There had been an accident. A bicyclist was down, being treated by paramedics. I didn't want to know what happened, so I just kept on riding. Was it a hit-and-run? Did the guy crash? Did he have a heart attack? Was he injured? Was he dead? Who knows? Whatever it was that happened, I took a moment to reflect on the danger of what we were doing. But I limited that moment to just that: a moment. Otherwise, I might have had trouble continuing on my way. The show must go on!

An hour later, at 4:00 p.m., we found ourselves on some completely open, practically deserted roads. You can see that, for one of the few times during the ride, we weren't worried at all about cars coming along. So much so that ...














... Jody later decided to do some riding Japanese-style, i.e., on the "wrong" side of the road. (I took this picture nearly an hour after the previous one!)

Numbers, numbers. This was the type of sign I enjoyed seeing. And here's how my brain reacted when I saw it: "Only 14 miles to go to the goal, which translates to about 24 kilometers, which translates to about an hour, which translates to a 7:00 p.m. arrival..." And of course, I also thought about the distance to LA, which would end up being "only" 140 miles after we reached Buellton (San Marcos Motel, $75.90), which would be one long, long day of riding.

A delicious dinner was usually our reward for a hard day of riding. As you've read by now, we didn't always find good food, but this night we certainly did! We went to Pea Soup Andersen's and absolutely pea-ged out. Here's a look at Joe using a spoon to hold up his famously thick milkshake (we each had one), which was more like a full glass of ice cream. You gotta love it, starting a meal off with dessert...

And here's a look at Jody's super-sized salad, ...














my salmon with succulent sides, ...

as well as this stupendous sundae (a.k.a. dessert number two), split three ways. The waitress had warned us that this dessert was a biggie, but we were still surprised at its size when it arrived. By the time we ordered it, we were absolutely stuffed, but, because ordering dessert had become one of our dinnertime rituals, we went for it, anyway. I guess we should have gone with the cheesecake, which would have been a lot safer. Believe me, the three of us struggled mightily to manhandle this monstrosity, which we estimated at 10,000 calories. Surely that was a slight exaggeration, but the huge amount of calories we were consuming was one of our daily topics of conversation, so we were simply having a bit of fun with that over dinner. By the way, can you tell by our expressions that we were a bit tired? Even if you can't, we were. And can you see how my face is sunburned? It wasn't that bad, but still, I should have done a better job of taking care of my skin. Oh, and do you see that ridiculous orange and black thing around my neck? Well, that was the day before Halloween, so I was doing my bit to celebrate, albeit one day early. As a matter of fact, when I walked into the place, I pointed to my lovely Halloween decoration and proudly declared to the hostess, "I've got the spirit!" For whatever reason, I was usually in a ridiculously good mood over dinner. I guess that's what riding 100-miles-plus a day does to me!

More Pix, Day 11: Santa Cruz - San Simeon

This is another picture that isn't all that remarkable, but what it does show is Jody not wearing his leg warmers to start the day, (Joe went without them, too. I think I wore them to start off but probably took them off a short while later.) which, I believe, was a first! That obviously meant that the temperatures were rising, which is always a good thing. Because of our later arrival in Santa Cruz the previous night (we got there around midnight), however, we got an equally late start in the morning. By the time we hit the pavement, it was already after 10:00, making it our latest start up to that point. You can't blame us, though: We all need our beauty sleep. Unfortunately, the late start came back to sting us badly when we got caught up in that nasty storm past Big Sur.


















This picture won't win me any contests, either, but again, it does tell a short story. Over the course of our "epic" adventure, we came across quite a few other cyclists. All of them, however, were going at a much slower pace and were, for the most part, staying at campsites. This guy here on the left, with whom Joe struck up a conversation less than an hour into the day's ride, is carrying at least as much gear as most of the other riders we encountered, which is substantially more than we had.

I took this picture at 11:25 a.m. As you can see, the weather is getting pretty iffy and it's raining off in the distance. You can also see that we moved a bit inland and that we were in prime agricultural territory. We weren't allowed on Highway 1 in this area (between Santa Cruz and Watsonville), so we were forced to follow a rather roundabout route. I thought it was actually nice to catch a breather and make our way around all sorts of fields rather than bee-lining it down the freeway, but the downside of that was, you guessed it, the hours were ticking by faster than the miles.

If you're familiar with the area, you're probably familiar with signs like these. It doesn't get much cheaper than that!

Luckily, at around 12:30 p.m., we found this food truck  parked off the side of the road, so I was able to stock up once again on calories of both the liquid and solid variety. (I wonder how many hungry bicyclists they have as customers.) As happy as I was to see this truck, I would have preferred a restaurant, but you just have to take what you get when you're on the road. Then again, I should blame Jody for this blunder. After all, he does have the magic phone that knows all and tells all, so surely he could have found us a nicer place to fuel up... Hear that Jody?

Speaking of Jody, here's a rare shot of him walking his bike, rather than riding it. Now Jody, why the heck would you be walking your bike? Tired? Fed up? Thinking of quitting? I bet you didn't tell your friends about this moment of weakness, did you?

Oops! Never mind. My apologies, Jody. You were just being a good, law-abiding citizen. Atta boy!












For some reason, that day I remember feeling like we weren't getting anywhere fast. I think it's because the mile markers were all too obvious, which made me think exclusively about distance traveled rather than anything else, such as the weather, the World Series, my aches and pains, food, the scenery, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro... By the time I took this picture it was already 1:00 p.m. and we still hadn't made it to Seaside. And look at how many miles to go to LA: 338. That is one scary number, which equates to a good three days of riding.

I rode past this sign an hour and a half later, at 2:30 p.m. Somehow, even though I got 11 miles closer to SLO in that time, I only managed to get 1(!) mile closer to LA. I knew LA was big, but that's ridiculous. The other not-so-comforting thought was that Hearst Castle was still so far away. In the back of my mind, even though I didn't want to believe it, the thought loomed that I was going to see that historic building before the night was over. Please pass me a tissue. I think I'm going to cry...












At least the ride was full of spectacular views ...

... which just got better and better ...

... and better? Wait, that's Jody, not some supermodel. What's he doing there? He was light-years ahead of me. Or so I thought. Somehow I caught up to him (could it have been that 520-calorie King Size NutRageous bar that I ate earlier in the day at his recommendation that gave me the sudden burst of energy?) just in time to take some cool pictures with him of the Big Sur coastline. (Joe pulled in a couple of minutes later to join in on the fun.)














Nice view, huh? And I'm not talking about the coastline; I'm talking about the guy in the middle of the picture! Of course, Jody would argue that he's the better-looking of the two of us... If you look carefully, you might notice what else the picture shows: Jody and Joe are wearing arm warmers. I'm not. Jody and Joe aren't wearing leg warmers. I am. Jody and Joe are wearing shoe covers. I'm not. Well, at least we all agreed on one thing: We're all wearing our helmets. Safety first!

Oh, crap! There goes Jody again, taking off while I'm still enjoying the view! I better go try and catch him again, which is nearly impossible... By the way, this is the last picture I took that day. It's really I shame that I wasn't able to capture on film the sights and sounds of the brutal storm that we endured later that evening. Oh, well. I guess you're just going to have to go back to the blog I wrote about it and re-read it to get a feel for what we went through. And I guess I'm going to have to go back to the store and buy a waterproof camera for the next time!

More Pix, Days 9 & 10: Laytonville - Santa Rosa - Santa Cruz

I took this picture of my trusty bike just before we set off for Santa Rosa at 8:30 a.m. of Day 9. Note that the tires are still the yellow ones I bought for the ride. This was their last day on the road. If you read my blog for that day, you know that I had a flat just outside of Ukiah and then almost immediately went to Dave's Bike Shop to get two new tires. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of the crew at the shop, because they were a good bunch of guys. By the way guys, even though I did get that one flat after just 35 miles or so after I left your shop, I made it the rest of the way to Tijuana with zero flats. So the tires were a good choice after all! Two thumbs up!














If you remember, the story of the day was the cold start. Here's another look at the morning conditions. This almost looks like a painting, not a picture.



















If you remember, I arrived in Willits ahead of Jody, who was too cold to ride, and Joe, who stayed behind to give Jody some company. I spotted this little restaurant and decided it was a good place to wait for the other two. As soon as we pulled out of here, two hours after we started our ride 22 miles up the road, Joe got yet another flat. He was able to find a bike shop, however, so he got two new tires and tubes.

We spent the night in Santa Rosa at Richard and Olga's place. For some reason, Olga didn't really like me, from the moment we met. I think it's because I couldn't muster a smile when she greeted us. I guess that had something to do with the fact that I was probably a little tired from the 105-mile(!) ride from Laytonville. And my 10-minute shower bothered her, too, since that led to the soup getting cold. Next time, I guess I'll limit my shower time to 5 minutes. Geez. Screw the hot water on the aching muscles. What was I thinking? Olga ignored me all night and didn't even look me in the eye when she shook my hand to say "Goodbye" in the morning. I guess I won't be spending any more nights at Olga's place. Oh, darn! (8:45 a.m.)

I took this photo at the Petaluma Starbucks where we met my cousin Rivka. (Why didn't I get a picture of the two of us?) 50 points to the first person who correctly guesses who "Ryder" is.

Ten minutes after we crossed into Marin County, Joe's (new!) tires were at it again. Jody took the opportunity to chow down on one of his favorite ride snacks, salted peanuts (2 bags for a buck). Note to Jody: It's not 3:15 p.m. It's not your time to eat!

Here we are at 2:45 p.m., getting closer and closer to Sausalito and the Golden Gate Bridge. If you take a close look at the photo, you'll see that Jody is actually taking a sip from his water bottle. Go figure.

This isn't the greatest picture in the world, but it's still worth including here because it shows the first glimpse I got of San Francisco! At that moment, I thought to myself, "I can't believe I've just ridden my bike from Vancouver all the way to San Francisco! Wow!"















Here I am at 3:30 p.m., riding across the Golden Gate Bridge! Crossing the Golden Gate was without a doubt one of my favorite parts of the ride.

After a pit stop at the Russian Bakery on Geary, we made our way over to the Great Highway. It's now 4:30 p.m. and we still have about 70 miles to go to our destination, Santa Cruz. Why am I smiling? I guess I must be nuts!

At least the weather was nice, as was the view!

More Pix, Days 7 & 8: Brookings - Eurkea - Laytonville

Here's another milestone, as we crossed into California shortly after leaving our night's lodgings, the Blue Coast Inn & Suites ($51.36) in Brookings. (9:35 a.m.)

When I tell Jody to slow down, he doesn't necessarily listen, but at least he's a law-abiding citizen...

When I looked at the menu before ordering a late breakfast (11:00 a.m.), I said to Jody, "I must be back in civilization." Why? Two words: Buckwheat pancakes. I don't think you can get buckwheat pancakes in Japan.

Here's the scene, about two hours post pancakes. It's not looking so good, is it? That explains why I didn't take any more pictures until we arrived at our destination in Eureka.

And here we are, seven hours later, enjoying a lovely dinner, thanks to our gracious host Jeanette! Notice how we three stooges are all wearing the same kind of V-neck. That's what happens when you put all your clothes in the laundry, and by "all your clothes" I mean the same shirt you've been wearing night after night after night... Toothbrush and a credit card, folks. Toothbrush and a credit card.

Thankfully, when we woke up the next day, we were greeted with bright sunshine. This is us, about an hour into the day's ride, at 9:35 a.m.
















As I mentioned in the day's blog, this was Joe's day to get punk'd. Oh, and it's not a cup of tea changing a flat with cars zooming by you at 65-70 mph. Anyway, here's flat number 1, at 11:00.

Flat number 2, at 11:15.

And flat number 3, at 11:40.

Here's a look at one of the more scenic roads we had the pleasure of riding on. (4:45 p.m.)

An hour later and it's getting dark.

At 6:00, I rolled past this sign, signaling the end of another day's work. This happens to be Jody's favorite place in all of California. Make that, the United States. Make that, the world!

Gosh, darn it! I love my knife... And I love you, too, Boomers... Thanks so much for the delicious, inexpensive, and filling meals... NOT!

Jody's attempt at creating his very own Leaning Tower of Peanut Butter Sandwiches...