A story worth telling

I've been wanting to write this portion of my bike trip down:

Several days into the trip as we entered the campground of Big Sur Pfeiffer I noticed a girl. A cute girl, who was biking down the coast solo. I was very impressed by this and was very keen to get to know her. So to that end I strolled over to her camp intending to invite her to eat with us that night. Instead I tripped over the rock holding down a portion of her tent collapsing the awning and generally making a ruckus to which she stated "Do you need something?" in a sharp, tent-having-been-ravaged tone. Abashed I quickly replied "ah... sorry. just heading out for a hike" before I even had a chance to think. At that point I figured I was obligated to hike, so I headed out into the woods and found a nice log to sit on. After sitting for what seemed like an appropriate amount of time I started back, ate dinner, had a good time chatting, and went to bed (ground?).

The next morning I tried to stall our departure in the hopes of getting a second chance, but to no avail. We took off and I was of the mind "well that's that, oh well". It was a short day of only 40 or 50 miles with only 1 store along the way and no other food stops for at least another 20 miles into the next day. We had nothing left to eat at this point so we picked up a pack of frozen hot dogs at said store and defrosted the dogs by taping the package to Hanson's bike, worked great.

We pulled into camp early at the scenic Kirk's Campground, a beautiful spot that sits atop huge cliffs peering out over a small stretch of beach out into the ocean. Taking advantage of the sunlight I went for a swim. When I came back 2 things happened: 1. When I arrived Charles (a friend met on the road) told me, as the group of cyclists we'd been traveling with for the past few days sat around a table, that "we think you're wearing bike underwear"; this was true (I think I set some kind of record for biking in underwear, see previous post) and 2. Leah (the girl) arrived and joined us at the table!!!! I was ecstatic. We got to talking and it was great.

That night we were chatting again, laying side by side with our heads towards the campfire making up constellations. Laying side by side eventually became cuddling, and eventually we did kiss. It was around this time that a group of at least 4 and possibly more raccoons found there way to our precious hot dogs. It was only a matter of time until they broke through the packaging and demolished our only food source. Leah had already mentioned turning in because of the cold and I knew (or at least in my inebriated state I thought I knew) that if I got up to stop them she'd probably go to bed, and I didn't want that moment to end. So I let the raccoons have our breakfast. I let them have it and I did so with glee.

The next morning, upon the "discovery" I acted all surprised. Very dishonest, I know.
I did tell Hanson the truth eventually...

I may finish writing this story later sometime. We started dating, flew across the country alot, and ultimately broke up a month or two ago.

Adventures! Well let's see. Saturday I went to a beach party/climbing get together with Oliver (climber I met on Thur with Chika) with what seemed to be half of the Santa Monica Mts. climbing community, it was great! I made so many new friends of the adventuring type; exactly the type of people I need in my life haha. So much fun. Only did 4 or 5 climbs (there were far more climbers than climbs) but the few I did were fantastic. We climbed off of a beach cliff that kissed the ocean just north of the Point Dume official parking lot. You could hear huge waves crashing behind you as you made your ascent up the volcanic breccia. The rock was strange; on one climb there were big pockets similar to other volcanic rock (like in Malibu) then a huge crack halfway up and finally a bunch of crimping to the end. Ended the day of climbing with a beer, a sandwich, and some acrobatics in the sand with really cool people.

That night I went to a party, which was fun of a different sort. I brought a friend along although she didn't seem to have a good time. But I had great fun talking to people. Anyway, left early so I could climb the next day.

And finally today, climbing again. Went to Malibu Creek with Kristine, Naomi, Yuriko, Aki, Jordan, and Taylor. Kristine did her first complete lead today for which I am very proud of her. Shortly after however we were rained out and took refuge in a nearby cave that, while cramped, is loaded with candles all over the walls and floor (we've dubbed it "Seance Cave"); making for a warm hideout (and a good place to spend the night :).

Back to business tomorrow.

So, at the prodding of Tana I'm going to start keeping track of my daily adventures. She made a really good argument, although I can't remember the specifics right now. But trust me, it was compelling.

Today was tragically beautiful. It's days like this that make me work all the harder, building my business so that someday I can exit this rat race and live; experience everything each day has to offer.

Anyway, I started the day off by meeting with a marketing consultant, or attempting to anyway. The meeting got cut short and rescheduled to next week. Oh! But while driving home I got briefly lost and found an abandoned oil refinery in Long Beach!!!!!!! I'm so excited! I texted the location to my blog (see last post). I plan on exploring it tomorrow night.
But that's the boring part of my day. The much more entertaining section started around 11, when Chika and I went climbing. She's a pretty good climber for a first timer. Totally handled the 5.7. Along the way we met another climber named Oliver and invited him to join us. It was great fun. We roped up 3 easy climbs until Chika tired out and another 2 harder ones for ourselves after that. I felt really good about the whole thing; I'm becoming a more confident lead climber. Let's see, well after that we parted ways with Oliver and headed back to the car, but not before getting his number (Oliver and I are heading out again on Saturday).

More happened today, I went to the gym. But I'm so bored of this haha. Not even I want to know the boring details of my life :).

orange and spring

Day 1 - July 16, 2009

Well, the trip really began on July 14th, that was the day Hanson and I planned on leaving for an all American cross country train hopping adventure. That was until we discovered the severely heightened rail security that's been in place since Sept. 11th and that being caught hopping meant 6 months jail time. Abashed but still up for adventure, we decided to bike from San Francisco back to LA and within 30 minutes had bought 2 plane tickets.

We gave ourselves 1 day of prep time (or rather, we saved 20 dollars by buying the tickets for the day after) which proved invaluable. We bought all kinds of supplies at least half of which were useful and one, although being the single worst buying decision of my entire life, proved hilarious. See, I figured that bungeeing my sleeping bag to the back of my bike would be impractical, necessitating a new much more expensive backpacking style bag. Until I saw the emergency bivy. That's right, the crunchy aluminum kind. Only 6 Oz. and rated 50+, how could I possibly go wrong? Anyway, we'll come back to that later. Oh it's also worth mentioning at this point that when I lost the last pair of good biking shorts available at Sports Authority to Hanson over a game of rock paper scissors and picked up a pair of similar but slightly less durable looking shorts, Hanson noticed. Remember that.

We left the next morning all supplied up and ready to fly out of LA, or so we thought. Apparently, to fly with a bike you need a special bike box, of which none are kept by ANY airliners ANYWHERE under any circumstances. Fortunately for us, Hanson has an iPhone, which we used to find a moving place 1 1/2 miles away. We hailed a taxi and raced off with only an hour to spare before our flight. Upon arrival I was informed that a cardboard box big enough to hold my bike would be $50. Whatever, we had a plane to catch; I shelled out 50 big ones and stuffed my bike into the box, literally.

I was down $70 (taxi + box) but my spirits were still high. We landed late morning and didn't make it to Hanson's apartment until 3 or 4 at which point he had to pick up the bike he was borrowing for the trip and take care of some pre trip business. We didn't leave until 6PM; Hanson wanted to wait and leave the next day, but I wouldn't hear of it, there was adventure to be had! So we set out and rode from the north eastern edge of San Francisco west and then south along the coast, getting lost every 45 minutes or so. Eventually we stopped for dinnerat a grocery store and picked up cups of hot wings from the deli and some mac n cheese. Bad idea. Oh, and my back light was stolen while I was buffalo winging.

About an hour later the bike path turned to highway and with me tail lightless we decided to pull off into the next available stop and make camp for the night. This turned out to be Fort Funston. We hiked into some bushes and cleared a patch big enough for our sleeping pads and bivys, ate some more buffalo wings, and tried to sleep. One thing about northern California: IT'S FREEZING! Those of you that know me well, know how anti tent I am. There we were, in the freezing cold lying in fetal position trying to stay warm, I didn't even bring a sweatshirt. We had to sleep back to back but even then, I only got about 1 or 2 hours of sleep. The rest of the night was shivering and sweating, which you do a lot of in a stupid emergency bivy because the thing doesn't breathe at all; during the few minutes you do find sleep you sweat and wake up moments later in a pool of freezing perspiration.

But despite all of this, I was still excited. It made me feel alive to be out, sleeping under the stars in a place I probably didn't belong, knowing I'd be on the move for days to come with one of my best friends. The possibilities were endless; it was like one of my daydreams had come to life.

Bike trip is over. It ended up being about 830 miles and my body feels great but I got my heart broken. I met someone on the way, a girl named Leah. She was biking from Canada to Mexico, alot of the way alone. She's adventurous, and smart, and beautiful, and everything I could ever want in a women, except that she lives in Florida. We shared a month together, fell in love, went to Tijuana and life was good. But now she's gone, and I'm so incredibly depressed. I'll talk about the trip later; write it all down before I forget. But for now all I can think about is Leah.

in monteray, about to leave, got stuck in a womens bathroom- long story