Today sucked. For being one of the easiest days on the route, I had my worst day riding… just couldn’t get into it today for some reason. Maybe it was not getting mentally prepared enough because it was such an easy ride, maybe it was the dreary weather, maybe the monotonous scenery, too much food, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just worn out. But, I did make it to my destination for the day, one day closer to the goal.

kitty, this is not helping get my blog posts done.

Things started taking a turn for the worse after I headed out of Jas’s house. I stopped at McDonald’s for my weekly dose of fast food; the calling of the sausage & egg McMuffin was too much to resist this morning. I tried fishing for WiFi there but to no avail. The fog above seemed to want to pretend it was rain; you’d get the faintest feeling of rain drops every so often, but it wasn’t actually raining. I stopped under an awning at a hotel to try again at snagging some WiFi, but again no luck. I decided to roll on and try in Monterey, and headed up the road to the onramp to 1. A ragged-looking touring cyclist (or a homeless person, it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes) pointed out that bicycles were prohibited on this section of 1 as it is designated as a freeway through town. I had to turn around and fish my way through town and on to Watsonville before I could get on the highway.

I decided to stop one more time to get my bearings, and the third time was a charm – I found an open access point and was able to get online. Blog updated, I headed towards Soquel Avenue and my way out of town.

I meandered along, comparing my progress to the picture of the map I had in my camera from the cycling book. I was convinced I had gone too far and missed the Freedom Ave. turnoff. (Turns out the map from the book is not to scale and I still had a few miles to go.) I came to another exit for 1 and decided to take it this time, despite the warnings of no bikes allowed. I didn’t know where else to go.

do what? you can get MOTORS on these things?!? I’ve been pedaling this whole goddamn time and I could have had a motor?!?

As I rode [BREAKIN’ THE LAW BREAKIN’ THE LAW] I kept on getting visions of being stopped by a police officer on the side of the freeway, having my bike impounded, being thrown into jail, waterboarding, death by lethal injection, etc. Sure enough, I heard the PA of a highway patrolman behind me telling me to stop the bike. Here we go.

The patrolman was actually quite nice about it, letting me know that Freedom Ave was actually up at the next exit, and he gave me some tips to get through the rest of town and where I was supposed to be. Escaping with my life and a fist bump from the officer, I rode on to the off-ramp and resumed life as a law-abiding citizen.

Even with the directions it was still fairly confusing getting out of town; the signage for the Pacific Coast route was not great here (as I’ve found in more than a few cases in California).

It was strawberry fields forever as I rode through farms in all directions, mostly strawberries, lettuce, and artichokes. (I wasn’t sure about the artichoke plants at first since I hadn’t seen them before; was wondering if they were ferns or medical marijuana or something until I saw the artichokes budding off the plants.) Literally miles of strawberries! I was jonesing for them I ended up getting my bag of cherries I’d bought yesterday and hanging them off my handlebars, eating the entire bag as I rode along. The bag fell at one point and I was eating them off the road, I didn’t care… FRESH FRUIT!!! Had I not eaten the cherries I may not have been able to resist the temptation to dive into a nearby strawberry patch and graze all day.

there were dozens of people in each patch harvesting strawberries. thought about chipping in and being paid in berries, but needed to save my back for the road.

After the excitement of all those berries wore off, the scenery was monotonous.

look honey, a viewpoint to the left! let’s get a better look at that industrial plant.

This was probably the most boring day of riding, scenery-wise, which was multiplied by the dreary weather. I stopped in Moss Landing for lunch of scallops & chips and was generally just putzing along for the day.

sea lions claiming the harbor for their own

More riding, more blah weather, more blah scenery. Approaching Marina there was a nice bike path that went for a few miles, but I just couldn’t get the motor running. Gophers had infested the path and were running to and fro. Massive holes they had burrowed under fences, everywhere along the route. Funny little creatures… hadn’t seen any of them really since my days in Montana.

Eventually I made it into Monterey and the weather briefly turned almost kinda sunny for about half an hour until it was back to being dreary again. I rode towards camp (which was up a hill, naturally) and set up my hammock. I was on forced awake mode just long enough to eat some food and get camp set up. By 5:30pm I was fast asleep.

I woke up around 10pm, took a shower, and watched the rambunctious raccoons tear through ignorant campers’ food. The raccoons here were the boldest I’d seen… I would not have been surprised to see one smoking a cigarette.

I stayed up for a bit longer working on my netbook, but was fast asleep again. Maybe I was just tired, I don’t know. The past couple nights I’d been sleeping indoors and had been getting to bed later… maybe it just caught up with me. Or maybe it was just an off day for me. If that’s the case, I’m glad it happened today and not on a day like tomorrow, when I have to tackle the hills of Big Sur.

Most Exciting Moment
Sleeping.

Roadkill Report

• three plums, each with one bite out of them
• a blue glove
• three gophers
• a raven
• a couple small birds
• a rat