Reasons 3783 - 4057

After a few days straight of camping it’s particularly refreshing to have a host lined up. We were really thankful to roll into the trendy, little, college town of San Luis Obispo and meet Tom and Nancy. Tom is a retired railroad engineer who now cycles a lot and delivers wine part-time for a friend’s vineyard. Nancy is an elementary, Montessori teacher. The four of us chatted on about the tour and their daily lives. I definitely appreciated Tom’s wit and sarcasm, and Nancy’s fantastic kung pow chicken.

Collin, Nancy, Tom and Rosie, their funny, little, blind dog.

Collin and I also took a walk through downtown San Luis Obispo and picked up some new reading material at Barnes and Noble. I recently finished reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles In A Thousand Years. I’ve read it a few times and loved it again. Throughout the book, Donald mentions stories about riding in a vehicle-supported, trans-American bicycle tour. He mentions an idea that I definitely have experienced firsthand. The idea is that no matter where you ride in the US/North America we are all connected. My driveway at home is connected to wherever I am on this tour. And, the crazy thing is that it takes far fewer twists and turns than you can imagine to get here. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the odd phenomenon of being a few thousand kilometers from home and still not feeling that far away. And, it’s all because I rode my bike here. My mind still can’t fully accept the distance being possible by bike. Now, I’m reading Love Does by Bob Goff, as well as Feathers by Thor Hanon and loving both of them.

The next day we made our way to Santa Maria to another Warm Showers host, Jeff and his family. Jeff recently started a new job with UPS. A truck comes by every morning and drops off domestic packages in his garage for the surrounding neighbourhood. Then, Jeff has all day to ride around and deliver them by bicycle. We connected quickly with Jeff’s family over some Little Caesar’s Hot-N-Ready’s. I just laughed and laughed with Jeff’s son, Cheyenne while Collin talked bikes with Jeff and tried out Jeff’s crazy, extended cargo bike with the box in the front. Jeff showed us pictures of his whole, little family (wife, eight-year-old boy and infant daughter) all in the cargo box. It was very cute.

Cheyenne wearing Nathan's Braves cap. Nathan wearing Cheyenne's Yankees cap.

This is the type of cargo bike that Jeff has fit his whole family into. Awesome.

Riding from Santa Maria to Santa Barbara was quite a little adventure. We had to ride the main highway for most of it. There were some tricky spots of road construction where the shoulder completely disappeared over narrow bridges. Twice I was passed by semi-trucks on those bridges, zipping by me at 60mph. We gained 3,166ft of elevation and lost 3,232ft in the same day. Our max speed for the day was 34.5mph/55.5kmh, and that was riding into a full-on headwind barreling at us through a canyon. You can see our full stats and route from the day HERE. It was a pretty intense ride that ended with a great visit with another Warm Showers host, Curtis.

The following day we continued along the coastline as far as Sycamore Canyon Campground at Point Magu State Park. During the day we ran into a couple girls from Québec who were touring as well. The four of us laughed about the similarities in our touring gear. Once we got to the campground and set up our tents we went exploring and found another group of six cyclists from Vancouver and a girl from New Zealand. We joked around with them while they ate their dinner, but took off back to our campsite when our stomachs started to growl.

It was pitch black out as we finished our dinner and pulled out my laptop to watch a movie. We only got a couple minutes in and then a couple raccoons started crawling up behind us making that retched, rolling growl of theirs. Pretty much immediately I closed the laptop and announced to Collin, ‘Sorry, movie night is over. I just cannot stay comfortable enough with those raccoons around. I won’t be happy unless I’m in my tent or they are dead.’ So, we put on our headlamps, found some big sticks and rocks and spent a long while trying to attack the raccoons. We scared them off for a few seconds here and there, but then they’d come right back with their creepy, glowing eyes. I went right to bed, even though it was only around six o’clock. But, Collin stayed up to try killing the raccoons in the hopes of reviving Movie Night.

Although I had a somewhat fitful sleep due to nearby, rambunctious boy scouts and the fear of potential raccoon nightmares, I couldn’t help but be excited about the coming day. We would be staying with a host in Long Beach aboard his 40ft sailboat.