Day 4/5: The Blustery day

Day 4…and some of 5:
Whoa. Just…whoa.

One thing I forgot to mention in Day 3’s blog was that early in the morning I was looking at the “extra stuff” on the map and read: “May and September/October are the best months for riding. Note that during the summer, strong winds prevail from NORTH to SOUTH.” Prevailing winds…north…to south. Good thing we’re not riding north up the coast huh?...oh wait.

Part of why the 2 mile hill slayed us was the gale winds blowing directly in our faces…is it fair to have to work to also go downhill? David told me, “don’t read that stuff on the map…you’ll get fixated on it, and won’t be able to ignore it.” Yesterday, neither of us was able to ignore the 32 mph headwind that started at 8:30 am.

Yesterday…was not a day either of us want to willingly repeat.

Hoping to beat the wind early in the day, we ate breakfast early and left D. Schulwitz’s at 7. We were applauding ourselves on getting on the road until we stopped at the grocery to pick up some bread. While I was inside, a bottle of olive oil managed to burst in our lunch box. While David was inside cleaning up the lunchbox, his bike/trailer fell over and managed to burst his camelback. Rivulets of water and oil pooled in the parking lot. We left at 8.

We made it up a mountain with switchbacks (yay for switchbacks!) that eased the climb. David always reminds me to take pictures, so we did, and began our descent…hands on brakes the whole way down. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And THIS little piggy went whee whee whee all the way to cabbage land, where the violent winds erupted.
Remembering what David said about the ignoring the wind stuff, I put my head down and pedaled. We pedaled at 10 mph. We pedaled up hills at 7 mph. We definitely got good looks at the cabbage fields. And the farm hands. And we also got good looks at other bikers gleefully heading south, waving happily at the “other” weirdos riding north.

Did I mention there was cabbage? Lots of cabbage. Also, lots of roadkill that you just don’t see in Illinois…wild boar with long legs. Rattlesnakes. Lizards. Turtles. Desert deer. I swerve to miss these things, but David? David sometimes just runs right over them. “I killed a lizard back there!” “I just ran over a turtle…but it was dead”. There are times when I look up from pedaling into the wind, and I see my wonderful husband off-roading. I’m still not sure if it’s from trying to stay as close to the edge of the shoulder as possible, or if it’s him being adventurous.

So, there we were, snail crawling. We look like pack-mules at this point, plodding along. What am I thinking about? Here’s a snapshot: “singing, singing, singing, BOAR, pedal pedal, LIZARD, CABBAGE, singing singing singing…wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind”

Noon was in a holeofatown called Guadalupe. We mailed probably about 7 lbs of stuff back to Chicago, checked the wind/weather report, filled up on water, and got back on the road. Outside of Guadalupe, I discovered that I’d ridden about 50 miles with a sugar packet in my shoe.

Besides the wind, the rest of the day was pretty fun. We stopped at a ‘Rock n’ Roll’ diner that was inside two railroad cars…and much later (5:30 pm), we discovered the beautiful town of San Luis Obispo… it’s an old mission town that is just so unbelievably cute. Here, we bought a new Camelback bladder and coasted through the downtown area. We also talked to a man who has ridden the coast six times. Has he ever ridden South to North? “Well, once I rode from Oregon to Washington, but I would never do that again…”

D. Schulwitz reminded us about warmshowers.org, which is a website that lets
touring cyclists find homes that will take them in for the night. We found Pat and George Brown in the directory (they were on our way on the map), and at 7pm…yes, that IS twelve hours later… we pulled into their home. What an unbelievably kind and wonderful couple. They welcomed us in, gave us a bed and a place to shower, MADE US STEAK for dinner (homemade bread, handpicked berries, etc...) and let us into their lives. Really, they are just an unbelievably welcoming and outstanding couple. They told us that if we needed to stay a little later today (Day 5), that we were welcome to even take a lay day here. So… we slept in, ate pancakes, and David talked to George about how to plan the rest of the trip, and… we’ve re-evaluated our riding.

We WILL ride into the wind to San Francisco. From there, we will probably catch an Amtrak to Portland, and head east. Today, it’s noon. We’ll probably head out soon and try to get about 30 miles in today. I want to keep my attitude about the coming days in check, and not despair over headwinds, but enjoy the trip… would you pray for us?

Love you all,
Kristen