Ride Day 158 Point Mugu to Oceanside

I was overly ambitious today. I did this same ride during my ride around the country and although it was tiring it was not that bad. But today it did not go as planned. After cleaning up after the rain during the night, I rode from Point Mugu into Malibu which was a long hard ride and I was going to stop for breakfast in town but instead I took a bus into Santa Monica. The bus ride was fun as I was the only passenger for the hour long ride due to a traffic accident that made traffic a nightmare. The driver and I were talking about everything under the sun and it was entertaining. When I finally said goodbye to him in Santa Monica it was starting to rain again.

I went into a restaurant to get a hot breakfast of eggs and the whole shebang with the hope that the rain would stop. It did. So I jumped back on my bike and took off. I did not get far before the rain came again. I asked around and took another bus, to the airport this time. It was a short ride but it got me out of the rain. I took another bus from there into Long Beach.

It was finally clear again so I stopped for some wifi at McDs and to my surprise they have a new wifi service that lets Bing and MSN work fast but slows everything else down to a crawl. What the hell is McDs thinking? Pissing of customers is not their usual style. I gave up and went out to get on my bike and my helmet was missing. The day was starting to get to me. I rode on without a helmet and about an hour later the rain started up yet again. This was getting old.

I stopped at a Starbux to wait for it to stop but it was looking worse and worse for better weather. I tried to find another bus and everyone told me a different story until finally I met a young lady that told me about a bus that goes to San Clemente which would get me out of the hell hole of LA. I went to where she told me and sure enough there was the bus. I took it to the end of the line with rain coming down the entire ride. Then I waited an hour in the rain for another bus to take me to Oceanside very close to Carlsbad which was my destination. I again had fun with the driver yacking the entire ride. In Oceanside I wanted to just get a hotel and rest up and clean up. My bike broke down on the way to the hotel. What else was going to go wrong next? I fixed the bike in the rain and checked into a hotel where I wrote this and now plan to sleep like a baby until 10 tomorrow morning. By the way I did not take a single pic today in the grey wet drizzling weather.

Ride Day 157 Refugio to Point Mugu

I got an early start from my campsite and headed down the coast. The riding was long slow grades then a quick downhill for most of the morning. It seemed like all uphill to me. I was getting tired but I pushed on. Finally around mid day there was a 2 mile long 7% downhill grade to glide down. The coast was pretty much the same all along and the colors were all browns until I got to Santa Barbara where suddenly there was green landscaping and flowers all over. I guess that is why the south part of the state needs all the water. I have never liked Santa Barbara and I still can not put my finger on why but the city just seems false and sterile to me. Their forced style of building in the flat roof stucco style they use is really not the proper building for the california Climate. Who am I to complain though, I really do not care much how other people build their homes.

I rode on right through town without bothering to even stop. I wanted to get to Point Mugu and it was a 90 mile ride. I finally cheated and took a bus through town and over to Oxnard which cut my ride by 25 miles. Glad I did it too cause I was tired when I got to Mugu State Park to camp. I set my camp up and was grumbling about paying $35 for it which is just too much money for a primitive campsite. As I was moping over the cash a single guy pulled into camp and I asked him if he wanted to share a site for the night. He said he did want to because it was too expensive.

I am glad he did because he was good to talk to. He was just ending a job back East working on a square rigger. We talked about his job and his plans after it. He is planning to take 3-6 months off and hike one of the big trails. We talked about that for a while and traveling alone as opposed to with others. Nice guy. Then around 6pm I took an allergy pill and in half an hour or so I was out for the night or I should say until my friend woke me up at 3am to tell me it was raining and I should put the fly over my tent so I didn't drown. I was glad he woke me up or my stuff would have all gotten soaked. a few pics

Ride Day 156 Lompoc to Refugio state beach

Yesterday I got up early and headed out on the road with the intention of going a long distance but in the end I was beat up after only 30 miles. Maybe it was due to my poor diet the day before but who knows, I just lacked get up and go energy. I stopped at Refugio State Beach for the night. I was there by 11am. After getting camp set up I went for a short ride around the beach. There were a few other campers I talked to that were fun to chat with. Then I went back to my tent and rested for 3 hours. The truth be told, I had a minor seizure in Lompoc and I could not ride very well. My muscle coordination was off and my timing and all of my muscles were just flat out sore. So I rested up all day watching whales blow offshore and lots of dolphins feeding and playing right at the beach breakers. I enjoyed watching it all. While I was resting in my tent the ground squirrels were trying to raid my food stash but I guarded it well. The birds were quicker and got a few morsels of bread. A fellow camper offered me a beer so I indulged while we watched the sun set. He was from South Africa. I threw a frisbe for a dog named Lola for about twenty minutes and had fun doing it. Then after the sun went down I retired to my tent enjoying being freshly showered and played computer games for a while before I went to sleep at an awfully early hour.