Back to the Start

Oy from Vancity! Apparently it's been raining most of the month of our absence, and today it is beautifully sunny, and I am heading out for a bike ride, pannier-free.
Our train ride was a 3-seasons-in-a-day tour: We left warm Santa Barbara, where sleeping in my underwear was uncomfortably hot without the window open and wearing my bikini while laundry was getting done was not weird, and within 12 hours or so we were in snowy Oregon, seeing as the train goes inland through Klamath Falls and Portland. And so here we are, having quickly passed through summer and winter, back in the middle of fall, with its leaves lining the streets, just in time for cheap apples to make lots of apple sauce. (And did I mention we're going to bake some delicious pumpkin pie?)

I worked at a cancer fundraiser last night, and it was nice to jump right back into things, but weird because I haven't had time to unpack anything yet, and I lost the keys to my house within the first 15 minutes of coming home.

If anybody is interested in doing this trip, which I highly recommend - quit your job now - you will find the Mountaineers book (which we followed closely) "Bicycling the Pacific Coast" by Vicky Spring and Tom Kirkendall an invaluable tool.

Final Destination

We've reached Santa Barbara, which is where we'd agreed a week or so ago was going to be our end point. Checking out the University currently, which is quite large and quite successful (UCSB), and where my friend just started her Ph. D. In Santa Barbara, it's hot in the sun and nice in the shade, and apparently it's like this all year, not getting much warmer in the summer and not getting much colder in the winter... hmmmmm. And there's mountains. But it's dry.
Anyways, not a bad place to live if you ask me.

Today: errands, laundry, dinner, drinks.
Tomorrow: get on a train at noon, with our bikes in boxes, and make sure we have enough reading material (me: one book; madalene: 4 books) seeing as it's a scheduled 31 hour ride which frequently runs late.

Back in Vancouver by Sunday, and back to filling my days with things, and a bit of cycling on the side.

Maybe one day I'll tell you the story about poppet, the little bike that could.

Saints, Gates & Mates

San Francisco!
What a change from our routine this was.

The 3 nights preceding San Francisco were very social, where we met 4 seperate groups of cyclists that had all previously met each other before. The first group told us about the second, and that we would probably catch up to them the next day, which we did, and that night we were 8 people sitting around the dinner table! Compared to what had always been the two of us eating dollar insta-pasta.
We had a feast of pasta, wine, bread, nutella, tillamook cheese we had gotten at the tillamook cheese factory in oregon... it was lovely.

The night before San Francisco, even though we were close to urban areas (15km out of Fairfax), we were woken up at 2am by wild pigs loudly going through the campsite (they sounded vicious, we huddled quietly, trying not to move). Then the racoons came (I felt like we were in The Mummy), and when they started trying to open the food box (which was a bit shoddy), Mad and Jeff both went out there to shoo them away.

That morning we rode into SF, over the Golden Gate of course, in some serious headwinds I might add, and then stayed downtown SF, which has now been for 2 nights. Got some delicious ethiopian food on the first night, and last night we had to have pumpkin pie, as cycling through pumpkin patches and missing Canadian thanksgiving had set off the obsession with eating pumpkin pie.

This morning we leave the city again and go back to our camping routine for a few days, but the urban centers are now closer together, so it won't be long before Santa Barbara and L.A.!

California!

So much has happened in the last week, and of course no time to write about it right now. Basically things have gotten very social, we've met lots of interesting people, mostly other cyclists doing the same thing or similar. We left late compared to other groups, but we've been making crazy time: if this were a race, we'd be lapping people. So now we've caught up to several groups who started in August or early September and have been going slower and/or taking rest days (which we have not done so far).

We're now 30km outside San Francisco, at Point Reyes station (which is a very cute town by the way), having cycled around 1800km in the past 2 1/2 weeks. We've cut 2 days off of our guide book suggested day trips so far.

Everybody we meet at campsites or on the road (other touring cyclists I mean) is pretty awesome. We were with another group of 2 for a couple days in Oregon, but we never saw them again after that day when it poured and we stayed at a hostel in Bandon.


The day after Bandon, we didn't miss a beat and decided to cycle to Brookings, which is a few km from the Californian border, but unfortunately was also 150 km from where we started that morning. We were making good time, but then Madalene got social at a rest stop while I was in the washroom (it's always while one of us is alone that we start socializing with others and good things happen) and met a fisherman who was driving to Brookings later that day in a big truck. A few hours later, he indeed drove past us and pulled over and gave us a ride for the last 25km or so.

Very interesting guy, and four of us went for some much appreciated pizza and beer that night in Brookings, after hanging out on his fishing boat for a while. Had we had extra time we could've gone for a fishing adventure for a few days off the coast of Oregon, but alas we are on a deadline of sorts.

first time indoors

Torrential downpours and 40km headwinds, not to mention the hilliest 20km so far on this trip, sent us to Bandon, Oregon, after 2.5 hours of HELLISH riding (the strip of road was called the Seven Devils, one devil for each ridiculously steep hill we had to go up back to back). We laughed through it of course, thinking - what could possibly make this worse? I suggested diarrhea would probably hamper our ability to cycle even more. Then I got my period! ...but Bandon was only 20 minutes away now!

Bandon was an oasis of wonder - very small town but full of coffee shops (there's a community college in town), and when I asked where the nearest hostel was, it was literally 20 seconds away across the street. Also lovely: several bookstores and laundromats. Our first night indoors last night, at a small guesthouse by the sea.
Makes us realize how much of a routine we have gotten into; pack our stuff in the morning, ride for 2 hours, get a coffee and some food, ride 3+ more hours, try to make camp before dark, unpack, eat, try to stay warm and dry, sleep.

The routine is such that last night we both used our own towels when we showered, even though we each had a face, hair, and body towel provided for us by the accomodation.

I also had the chance, while sitting on the hostel bed in decent lighting, to appreciate my newly gigantic quads. I hope my jeans still fit.

Having coffee now, courtesy internet, but it's nice again so we shouldn't waste time. In 2 days we will be in California.