I'm finally on the way to my house, this time riding the caltrain north.  My best hoped plans didn't materialize at all, so I strictly can't say I've failed, but I do need to figure out what is next.

I'll start with today, I woke up on willchan's couch, Katelyn and I convinced him to do moody, so I put my bike together, pumped the tires and we headed out.  Neal, Zoran, Luis joined us.  I had trouble with my phone for timing the ride, but Moody got flatter since I road it last.  I passed Zoran and Neal despite them having a minute-ish head start on me.  Then the rest of the day was wasted chatting with people and waiting for Roberto to get to work so I could get the stuff I mailed to him.  I couldn't fit all my stuff into the backpack I mailed, but at least I have my laptop so I can get my pictures off my camera.

As for yesterday, I had a reasonably quick ride from Samuel P Taylor state park to the office in SF.  I got to thre office before 1000 in time for yet another fire drill.  I have no clue what time I left since both my phones died the day before.  Even the one I tried to leave off so I wouldn't have to worried about the battery.  It seems I turned that on at some point.  The route was mostly well marked through the constant suburbs of Marin, except for the transition from route 15 to route 5.  The headwinds in Sausilito were the worst of the trip, especially coming out of Sausilito.  The city looked to be covered in cloud and fog from the Sausilito and the bridge was buried in fog, but once I got to Chrissie fields the sun was out and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride through SF.  As with today I mostly wasted the day at the office chatting with people and not doing work.   I go out for lunch with Tina.  At the end of the day I did butterlap.  San Francisco has also gotten flatter since I left.  By the new definition of a hill (my lowest gear up, and hardest gear down) the normal two hills of butterlap were reduced to one.  After butter I stopped by Toronado for drinks with Tina, Jeff, Noonan, and random people Tina and Noonan know.  As I was about to leave Devon (a random girl I met that night) asked me to change shirts (I was wearing a Google shirt I found at my desk that happened to be clean, unlike the clothes I had with me while camping).  So I traded shirts now I have a brown and white stripped woman's shirt.  I wonder if I can trade, or make use of this shirt in anyway.

Now for my last real day of riding. I left Gualala county park about 0630 before the ranger came by to collect fees.  One other woman who I saw hiking out to the beach the evening before also left at 0630 with me.  The day started heating up pretty quickly, I stopped every ten miles or so for the first 30 miles.  The second of those stopped was to chat with two boys going north to Portland.  They started in SoCal and had burned too much money at the start so were down to 5$ a day per person for food and lodging.  (This is sort of hard without the map, I don't remember the town names and the order is very easy to mess up)

Fort Ross, there before it opened

Abalone divers, mosty asian men, lots of white trucks.
The day Before that, the small town was all Fords.

Camped with Reuban & Carly from SF who were geocaching and doing there first bike camping trip.  Bill (a mechanic at American Cyclery) & Dan ( a mechanic at Mike's Bikes).

85 mile day to Samuel P Taylor, done by 1530.  The last couple miles were hard, after the hot hill

My ankle did feel some pain, like after waves to wine, I like I push really hard with those slow hills, I did spent a large portion of the day in my big ring, except for the coastal climbs.  I climbs seemed to be the hardest of the trip.

Today was a good day to ride, it was sunny, the road was smooth, the hills were gentle and as the day wore on a tail wind grew.  I left after 0830 this morning after cleaning up the bottles and cans (4 large bottles, 10 large cans and 18 bottles) and a large bowl of granola.  I passed manchester beach around so I decided to continue on.  I wasted a bunch of time at the manchester grocery store then moved on to a cafe at the turn off the the point arena lighthouse for lunch.  The BLT was good and the salad had strawberries.  I cruised on over to the closest point in the continental USA enjoyed the tour then got back on the road.  I stopped for sanity after 14 miles and met up with Kevin, we hauled ass into Gaulala where we stopped for groceries and met up with Martin (young) and another guy who I passes earlier in the day.

I arrived at the Gaulala county park around 1630.

Last night was a lot of fun, I bought some beer for the boys, we had some drinks, enjoyed a beautiful sunset (no clouds were on the horizon), then went back and had a campfire with hot dogs, marshmellows and more beer.  2 guys had to go on another beer run before the store closed at 2130.

My first stop of the day was a jughandle state park.  I wanted to see the pygmy forest, but the trails were poorly marked so after wandering around and not crossing the highway I continued on.

It looks like I'll be by myself at the park tonight.  I'm debating if I should go to bodega, samuel taylor or all the way home tomorrow.  I think taylor is the best option, then I can roll into the sf office for breakfast.

Last night I hiked around all the short trails at richardson's grove, then went to the campfire about toads and frogs.  I failed to light the campfire, my minimalist style was not effective with the logs that were there, but I did throw around a frisbee with Will & Adam.  My frisbee skills are still in tact after the years of disuse.  After the campfire Amy gave us some marshmellows to roast so the 5 social ones at the hike & bike camp cooked up some yummy sugar.  The other guy at the hike & bike camp was probably going north since he left about 15 minutes before me and I didn't pass him.  He was sort of different he didn't talk to me in the morning when he was packing up and he didn't have cycling shorts (or legs).  Also his helmet was a hard hat.  I'm guess he was laid off and is moving some place or trying to live cheaply for a while.  I was away shortly after 0700, probably 0715, I arrived at MacKerricher beach before 1400.  The first 16 miles to standish-hickey were long and hard as I expected, the rest of the climb up Leggett wasn't bad, it was simply a long up.  What made it hard was there was no place for water for 28 miles so I stopped at the drive through tree in the town of Legget (I didn't have to pay :) to fill up my extra water bottle.  I didn't need all the extra water so I carried more weight than I needed.  The descent from the summit had lots of places for the road leveled out I didn't work too hard on those so it took me a while to get to the bottom of Leggett hill.  Rockport hill may have been harder, certainly the traffic was worse.  The coast road after the rockport hill was pretty fast except some portions which did big sweeping moves inland downhill, then came back to the coast uphill against the wind.  I had 3 cliffs bars to eat today along with an apple and a small bag of peanuts at standish hickey.  Lunch was a reheated spinich and feta calzone that didn't have enough feta and a klondike bar in Westport.  I rode about 55 miles today.

I visited the beach here, instead of sand the beach is made up of tiny rocks.  On my way back from the beach I saw to boys touring north, they aren't at the hike & bike site, so they could be trying to go over leggett hill today.  I've been surprised how much bigger and stronger the waves on the northern california coast are compared to the northern oregon coast.

I had a rather late start today, I did call my dad to wish him a happy fathers day.  My mom and dad are starting their vacation on Thursday as I finish mine.  I started riding at 0900, my first stop was in scotia to see the museum for the company town, the I continued on to the avenue of the giants where a guy riding to his sunny vacation spot (a trailer) in philipsville offered me lunch if I kept up with him.  So I rode with Joe, a 66 year old who started cycling 5 years ago to help his knee, until philipsville with him letting me stop once in myers flat for some gummy worms.  Before Joe caught up with me I did stop to see the immortal tree and the eternal tree (there is a room in the eternal tree, with windows and a guestbook).  I had a lovely long lunch with Joe and his wife Doreen, then eventually made it on the road again.  I stopped in garberville for granola, and continued on to richardson's grove state park.  There are 5 of us hanging out at the hike & bike camp, two guys from tuson, az (Adam & Will) then martin and some guy who rode from brookings in two days.

Joe and I got to philipsville before 1230 and I made it to the park before 1530.

The trails here are nice, there aren't too many mosquitos.  While making supper two young rangers came around who gave us stickers, I have a california flag and the planet earth.  They invited adam, will and I to the campfire tonight, if we show up early then those guys can be volunteers.

My phone died overnight.  Oh well, whatever was eating the battery has certainly stopped running now.

I haven't sat on my wallet in a while, it was awkward to do that.

I was road until about 1500.  I'm not sure when I left, for the usual 0715.  I do know I made it to Orick before 0800 for a slice of blackberry pie.  Riding on the freeway is really nice, it is fast with pseudo tail wind from the passing trucks.  I like it better than country roads with endless fields, rough. Roads and no shoulders.  The freeways have a large shoulder and the rumble strip between me and the motor homes makes the road comfortable.

  This morning was foggy and rainy so I decided to ride today instead of taking the day off.  The day was rainy until Trinidad.  On some of the down hills I was moving so fast I could barely see.  I stopped in Trinidad, it is a small town but I got lots of cliffs bars and some chips to eat.  After checking out the beach and the memorial lighthouse (it has a list of peope lost and buried at sea), I continued on out of trinidad and the rain seemed to dry up. I stopped a couple times for gummy worms but otherwise I stayed on 101 until Eureka where checked out the old town, then got some sheppards pie for lunch and discovered I took the wrong path through town, so I found the proper route and continued on looking for a bike shop but I found fort humbolt first.  Fort humbolt is on the south end of Eureka, so I missed the bike shop.  I continued on hoping to go another 6 miles or so.  I started riding along 101 again, Fields Landings looked boring, so I rode on looking for an Eel river tap room.  There was a billboard on the side of the road that intrigued me.  Thinking I was smart I took exit 696 before exit 694 (the sign said the tap room was at 694), on the alternate route through Loleta.  There was an old guy hiking to loleta.  Loleta was tiny, really tiny, so it didn't have the tap room I was expected.  It did have a cheese factory with some very good samples.  Enough that I bought some smoked cheddar.  In loleta I found out fortuna had an eel river tap room, about 6 miles down the road.  I rode until the first exit to fortuna then rode all the main st.  The first motel looked really dingy, so I continued on until I found a bike shop where the mechanic checked my chain, replaced it without trying to do more work, they also gave me directions to a set of motels and the tap room.  Thus I am staying at the super 8 and had the taster at the tap room with wings.  The best beers were the acai wheat and the triple exultation, both of which I brought back for a night of tv, beer and emails.

One of the weird things about riding south is that I have gone further south than the days have gotten longer.

Problems passing urine, the tv commercial couldn't say pissing or urinating.

I liked the hills today, the Cresent City hills weren't as much as I was expecting.  The 2nd and third summits came very quickly.  My first stop today was to pick up some cliffs bar, but I didn't find them in a quick scan of fred meyers so I continued on, cruised through the Azalea park and on to california.  I stopped to pee on the welcome to california sign, the agricultural inspector waved me through without any questions, then I took a wrong turn turn and took the old bike route along ocean view dr instead of 101.  That was painful since the road was going up and down very quickly.  The rest of the way to Cresent City basically sucked.  In Klamath I stopped at the "trees of mystery", saw some cool trees then went looking for lunch.  After a couple a miles I was greeted by a welcome to Yurok tribe, I hadn't missed Klamath yet, it only seemed that way.  Klamath is tiny there was a subway, a gas station and a cafe, the is closed.  I got to the elk prairie campground around 1600 after hiking a few stops inside the prairie creek park.  Before Crescent City I stopped at the market at Fort Dick.  The market was cool, it is a convience store in the front a grocery store to the side and a luncheonette off to the side.  I got a chimichunga and a pepperoni stick there.  I had a turkey sandwich on a croiscent with extra extra salt on the fries.  I left around 0715 this morning.

Last night was a reasonable night to get sunset pictures unfortunately the pacific likes clouding over at dusk, the short hiking trails to the beach and butte are nice short and steep.

A new addition to my master plan that will not happen, mary-ann should do moody.  I'm not sure I can make it to sf on the 24th, some of the double days I had planned look hard.

I don't understand the battery life on this four.  The first 4 days it used 50-60% of the battery, today it used 60+% battery in one day from the same used.  Yesterday the phone used about 40% of the battery.  I should find out which app is bad.  My options are the slide puzzle game or the music app which may keep the sd card powered up.  I guess I need a friend on the android team (cynthiaw!).

Martin made it to elk prairie today.  So we shot the shit for a bit.  I expect this will be the last we see of each other since neither of us will stay at the prescibed sites for the next few days.

The mosquitos are dumb here.  I sat down and about 10 started flying around me but none landed or buzzed.

I did a lot of riding today.  My aches weren't too bad and I rode 85^W 90+ miles today.  I was planning only doing 70, but I took a wrong turn and went 5 or so miles down cape arago.  They was a colony of seal lions that I heard and got some pictures of.  I also needed to go into brandon to pick up food since charleston didn't have what I was looking for.  My side trip down cape arago was very pretty and the road was nice and smooth.  I was also on a bit of a sugar high since I had 3 cups of iced tea at subway when I stopped for lunch.  I left at 0730 and arrived at 1430 with a half hour lunch stop in coos bay.  I opted to stay at bullards beach park instead of the hostel since they are supposed to have a museum with pictures of ship wrecks.  7 devils rd was a little rough but a nice ride along the top of a ridge.   I saw markings on the road for devil #2 and devil #7.  The sign for devil #7 made me smile.  Well there was a map of shipwrecks at the lighthouse that was 3 miles out from the campground.  The campground is rather small.  As for the hostel I looked for it when I went to get groceries, I didn't find it there so I'm glad I didn't try to stay there.  I got some company tonight, and older guy named ken biked from honeyman (he was they guy camped when I checked at 1730 yesterday).  I made a fire so we could cook up some of they spicy hotdogs he bought today.  Supper was a bag of chex mix a rogue brown ale, two hot dogs with colby jack cheese in japapeno & cilantro wraps.  Ken has been fun to talk to he has done the pacific coast trip once a years since the 70s so he knows all the places to stop.  There were 4 other guys camping at honeyman last night, I passed them within the first 15 minutes since one of them stopped to put on sunscreen.  I didn't see the sun today.  It took me a while longer to pass ken but I did on the first bridge.

I rode from honeyman to bullards beach today.

A day off.  Yesterday was a tough ride I never got over my aching nut, so I'm taking today off then I'll ride from honeyman park to elk prairie without a day off.  I rode with shorts on for the first time yesterday, that seemed to keep the breeze under control but the repeatative knocking of my nut is something that shorts or a sock can't deal with.  Maybe I should try some of that shamey butter.  I took a lot of stops yesterday for pictures, the coast changed from beaches to rocky shores.  One guy out for a morning ride caught up with me after Yachats.  We rode together for a few miles before I needed a break, I almost kept sight of him until the tunnel, after the tunnel I stopped to visit the sea lion caves.  In florence I stopped in for some granola at the fred meyers (I really like this grocery store, I can easily find the bulk section and stuff on sale) I met up with the couple I leapfrogged a bit between astoria and nehalem.  At the seal caves one guy asked me about my skinny tires, then another old guy took a look at my bike and asked me about my trip.  The second guy apparently used to race.  He said the 100 mile training rides were the killers.  Now his knees are glass so he can't ride.  Inside the caves one einstein looking guy asked me about my trip, and how the cars were treating me, he said he thought holland was a better place to bike since that is the expected form of transportation.  Later he told me about yan who he met in nehalem, I remember seeing the einstein looking guy at nehalem.  Now I can say it took as long to bike to the sea lion caves as to drive.

I was planning to make it to umpqua yesterday, but I spent an hour riding a 4-wheeler (atv) around the sand dunes.  That was a lot of fun, I got stuck once and almost tipped it another time, but I came in safely when my hour was up.  So I arrived at Jessie M Honeyman memorial state park about 1615.  I got in took a walk around to find the washrooms, the ones the signs point to are still closed for the winter still.  By the time I got back to the park Faiza had arrived (again on her own, she and Kathleen had decided to ride on their own for another day.  As much as they love each other 12 days without any break is a little too much).  Not too long after Faiza had arrived martin arrived.  Then there was a steady stream of people, about every half hour.  First anthony (anthony was also recently laid off) and nathan who are crazy good riders and are going to attempt to make it to harris beach today.  Then an englishman (Ian, a vegan) riding from vancouver to argentina, apparently this is his mid life crisis.  Then kathleen, and finally 3 boys from utah who plan to make it to the mexican border.

To start the fire last night, I needed to burn my receipt from south beach.  The fire was small and didn't burn as well as I wanted but the 20 minutes of woodgathering was enough to keep the fire going for the couple hours or so that everyone ate and talked as it got dark.

As expected today was super lazy.  I took a walk over to the lake, checked out renting a boat but they were taken for most of the day by students taking a fun field trip on the last day of school.  So I explored the dunes for a bit and laid on the warm sand.  By the time I was moving 20 minutes later the school kids had arrived and the dunes were covered with kids.  I went back to my site and noticed there was a yurt available, so I'm staying in a yurt tonight.  Once I had moved my stuff, I went back to the lake got a hot dog and popcorn.  While eating my lunch in peace the school kids from thre dunes all came over to start swimming.  Oh well, eventually I got myself moving to go over to the shower thoroughly rinsing all my clothes and having a shower myself.  They rest of the afternoon I read the louis l'amour book I picked up yesterday and drying my clothes.  The book read like a tv show episode with all the clean endings and bad aim by the bad guys.

The wireless in south beach state park isn't free.  I got into the park at 1630.  I asked the gate officer how she was doing, she said "don't ask" so I offered her some sour patch kids since those made my day a lot better.  I think her day has gotten better from the sour patch kids.  The showers here are hot but any shower after 3 days feels good.  Now if only I can find a way to ensure my hair is dry by nightfall.

Before getting to the park I crossed the bridge out of newport expecting to go to the maritime museum, but I passed the rogue brewery, so I stopped in for a nice taster.  The double dead guy is strong, I like the shakespere stout, but I think it had too much of a coffee flavour to be a good oatmeal stout.  The morimota soba was very nice it is a light smooth beer.  The honey orange wheat beer was different.  The penguins won?  I wasn't expecting that, last I knew they were down 2 or 3 games to 1.

Still going backwards, upon arriving in newport the first place I saw was a restaurant called izzy's.  It turned out to be a buffet, I guess an all you can eat buffet, I didn't stick around to try more than one piled on plate.  I did have a salad, clam chowder, and dessert.  I guess marionberry is an oregon specific berry.  One interesting they had beside the usual comfort mac & cheese or bacon was a roasted potato that was longwise sliced potatoes cooked in chicken batter.  I liked the garlic mashed potatoes more.  The reason I stopped at izzy's is that it was on the turn out to the lighthouse I was going to check out. I didn't go up in the lighthouse since there was a line, but I did get to see a lot of cool seabirds piled on the rock islands near the shore.  The other bonus of the lighthouse is that it was free for anyone that didn't drive in.  Like me!

The cape of foulweather was beautiful, they was a slow grade up with beautiful weather, the giftshop at the top also had no wind.  The raod was one way with 1 lane for bikes and one lane for cars.  I thought I heard a tire start to go flat on the way up, but nothing was wrong.

People for last night: martin, logan, yan, montreal couple, graeme (on recumbant) and chris.  Last night was the first night with a good number of people at the hiker-biker sites.  Yan was one guy from montreal who did an emt course in yosemite then for a vacation he rode from sacramento to nehalem where some family was picking up today.  Logan was a young guy who is in his post high school life crisis.  He has taken a couple years off and is now riding to oxnard.  He may have gotten to licoln city today.  Graeme and chris are brothers, chris is taking graeme on a bike tour since graeme was recently laid off.  They weren't going very fair each day, maybe more than 20 miles.  And lastly Martin who has recently been laid off made an off hand comment about riding the pacific coast since he had the time, now he is doing it with cheaply acquired and some borrowed equipement (the burley trailer is borrowed).

Getting to pacific city was uneventful.  I passed Martin on the first climb.  Unfortunately I missed the cape kiwanda state park.

I didn't enjoy getting to lincoln city, my nut hurt and I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere since I was slowing down to stretch so often.  I picked up some sour patch kids and spent a bunch of time sitting or laying on sidewalks, and finally made it on my way.  Whatever I was supposed to see here I missed.

To depoe bay was better than to licoln city since it was shorter and I knew the places I wanted to stop. I couldn't see the boiler in boiler bay, but I did have more sour patch kids.  The harbour was neat I got a picture of fish being gutted.  I also came across another rider going north.  He seemed to have very ambitious plans for how far he could go even though it was probably afternoon. I did see a couple going down the north side of cape foulweather touring.  There seems to be a lot of people doing the north to south trip.

I've barely had time to write this entry I talked to some of the camp volunteers for a while, got a cookie and some popcorn.  While talking a nice young woman with cycling gloves came in.  I figured this meant I wasn't the only cyclist anymore.  I was right Faiza had arrived (the young woman) and Martin had also made it to south beach as he planned with getting his wheel fixed in newport.  Faiza's friend Kathleen arrived a little later, they are riding down to SF and are hoping to make it for pride on the 28th.  Really the dyke march on the 27th, Martin has a similar plan for the 28th. Faiza is spelled with a zed.  She is going to go to berkeley in the fall for a masters of social work, so this ride is also is connecting her to the bay area and vancouver where she grew up.