Yes, he's gone. Abruptly ripped away from us in the back yard of a dirty hippy house in Arcata a few days ago. We were left to sleep in the yard with the chickens lamenting the loss of a key member of our bike family. (I am definitely not a fan of those chickens. I can't let go of the horrifying image of those legs about 8 inches from my face first thing in the morning.)
So we now live in a state of "the race to San Francisco". Immediately upon entering California a couple days ago, we started getting hit by those ridiculous signs every 15 miles or so: "San Francisco 360 miles" "San Francisco 347 miles" "San Francisco 330 miles"... ummm... you get the picture.
It makes it tough when guys in small towns like the one we're in right now offer to give us a ride that we know will result in us being there by tonight! We're gonna suck it up and ride this bitch though... so don't worry about any bailing going on. We're in it for the glory now that Diego is gone. He's not here to remind us to slow down anymore so we are already back to our 30 miles before 11 a.m. mentality. It's funny how amazed people are by how quickly we can pack up and leave camp... because for us it's like second nature. (see "PCT '05" for reference.)
Jim, Chuck, and Tina are currently watching a Packers game across the street at the Blue Room Lounge (we are in Garberville? i think?), meanwhile, Max is braving those hot California hills already as he got promptly kicked out of the bar for his license admitting he is only 19. (Jim offered to pretend to be his dad... to no avail.) I feel like if it is still before noon you should let it slide. But that's just me.
We have some MASSIVE hills to conquer in the next few days, but i am rather looking forward to tackling some serious shit before taking it easy in S.F. We're hoping to be there Thursday evening, and plan on spending the whole weekend relaxing and NOT riding our bikes. Come this Tuesday we will be celebrating our third week anniversary of this trip, and somehow we have not had a single day of less than 40 miles of riding so far.
Speaking of hills, we tackled our first "difficult" rated day right before Diego's departure... which resulted in my first bike-riding induced puking sesh to date. The hill was hot, smelled of new pavement, about 1100 ft straight up, and apparently didn't agree with the 16 oz. mocha i had recently inhaled. So I got off my bike (i know, i'm a wuss) let the mocha go, and continued to climb. Awesome! It was even more extreme than my pants peeing episode on that beach run with my dad a month ago.
Well... I guess I should go pretend to support this silly midwest football team with the dudes... until next tiny overpriced pay computer in a cafe!
San Francisco or bust!
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2 comments:
I miss you, sister. You are a funny funny opossum. Good luck in Cali. I will text you Dotsie's fo. xoxoxo to you and Christina.
Me, too. Was it more intense than the Ballard track episode?
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