Friday, September 14, 2012

Sausalito, CA to Nowhere, NV: More Warmshowers, More Warm Weather

*phew* I think I might get all caught up today! Imagine that -- you can read things on my blog that actually happened less than 24 hours ago! Better stop jinxing it and get back to typing.

And also enjoying the view.

Er, no, this is just a photo of San Francisco. Never mind.


We left Sausalito about 7 AM in order to be able to catch the ferry out of San Francisco. It is possible to bike around the south side of the bay, but it's about a 2- or 3- day detour, so we took the ferry from San Francisco to Vallejo. Not before getting to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge first, however! --

Boom goes the dynamite.


So yea, we rode the bridge, meeting some nice commuters on the way ("I want to complain about getting up this early, but then I remember that I get to ride across the bridge to work every day"), then rode through downtown San Fran, which was pretty cool and exactly like in the movies (the ones filmed in San Francisco, anyways). We arrived at the ferry building with 30 minutes to kill, so stopped at a croissant place to pick up... well, I got a croissant, Ken got a donut. Donuts are sort of becoming a thing on this trip. We could probably eat all donuts and still not have enough calories to make it through the day. *cough* Anyways... not sure if that was bragging or not.

So we sunscreened up after getting off the ferry, then rode through Vallejo, and then it was windy... which became a theme. A lot of people say the wind blows west to east... a lot of people say the opposite... I say it's, well, whichever way the wind blows. Seriously -- sometimes it was with us, sometimes it was against us. Either way, you keep pedaling.

After riding in the sweltering heat (yes, we had our last view of the ocean that same day -- interesting what going just a little bit inland does to the climate) for a few hours, we found a produce store. This place was hopping.

Did I mention they had strawberries?


We bought a lifetime supply of strawberries for $2 and made lunch out of it before continuing on. Oh also, I forgot to mention, we were in wine territory, so didn't really want to stealth camp... lest some snobby vineyard security guard should stumble upon us. It would have been pretty cool to camp in a vineyard, but not worth the risk (though, I did end up truing Ken's wheel in a vineyard... there's a photo of that somewhere).

Anyways, we continued on in the sweltering heat, stopping whenever we found shade. We probably would have taken a nap in the shape if we hadn't set up another warmshowers venture, but we weren't so sure about stealth camping given how populated the area was (okay, it wasn't that populated once we got out of wine country, but there were lots of fences).

Eventually we made it to Davis, where they had BICYCLE ROUNDABOUTS. For those of you who don't know me that well, I have a thing about roundabouts. For those of you not reading this blog -- I have a thing about bicycles. So as you can probably imagine, I was super excited about bicycle roundabouts. And there must have been twenty of them -- every block or so on the campus of UC Davis.

Oh and did I mention BICYCLE ROUNDABOUTS!?!


While still in wine country a guy named Elliot rode with us for a while before speeding off. He was just completing a three day tour carrying nothing but his toothbrush, as he had places to stay every night. In any case, he ended up going home, showering, changing, getting on a different bike, and meeting us just outside of town. It made me feel pretty slow... *cough* anyways. He was pretty cool, and volunteered to be our tour guide through town and to the bike path to Sacramento, where our warmshowers stay was for the night. Thanks, Elliot!

"I'm Elliot and I certify myself to be awesome."


Anyways, we made it to Sacramento about 7:30, where Yvette, our warmshowers host, had a room and a shower waiting for us. She made pizza while we washed off the day's work (I think that's the only time I've taken a shower two days in a row... don't tell anyone), then we ate and Scrabbled the night away before heading off to bed at an exhausting 10:30. Kids these days, I don't know how they do it.

Yvette also had great taste in art.


After tour guiding us around a bit the next morning (namely, she biked with us to the grocery store), Yvette left us at the start of a 30-mile long bike path from Sacramento to Folsom. In Folsom, we stopped at a bike shop hoping to buy a chain whip (a tool you need to replace broken spokes on a wheel -- spokes often break on tour, and sometimes make the bike unrideable, meaning if you can't fix it you have to walk to the nearest bike shop that can). The only one they had weighed about 2 lbs, so we passed. And found donuts.

You couldn't catch me near one of these if you tried.

...don't bother trying...



*ahem*

On a way to a place to camp for the night, we met Tim, who was from Germany. Tim apparently stayed at the same warmshowers host as Sandro and Seal in San Francisco, so it was quite a coincidence seeing us. He was biking from San Fran to New York, but was much faster than us, so he took off. We were left behind in search of shade and water. We spend that night in an empty, abandoned lot just outside of town (but don't tell anyone).

The next morning -- the day after we passed up a chain whip -- Ken got a broken spoke. Now, a bit of backstory here. I built my bike to be the leanest, meanest touring machine out there. Steel frame, custom built heavy-duty wheels... okay, I sort of went overboard, but I didn't know that until now. Also, not very lean. *cough* but anyways. Better too much than not enough, right? Anyways, Ken is using his racing bike to tour. So he's sort of on the opposite side of the scale. I made a personal bet with myself that he wouldn't make it a week without breaking a spoke. This spoke breakage comes at 6 days, 23 hours, and about 44 minutes after leaving.

So anyways.

Ken's fancy racing bike also has straight-pull spokes (look it up if you're curious). Long story short, he was actually able to replace the spoke without removing the cassette (which is what you need the chain whip for). I was seriously impressed.

Wish they'd taught me that trick at bike school.


Many things happened that day, but the long and short of it is that we biked through wine country again, met some tourists from Britain (from NY, going to San Fran, 9 weeks on the road and 2 days left!), and then at lunch,

Tim!


Tim!

(oh, that's Tim, by the way)

Tim is the German guy who had passed us the previous day. He apparently had gotten a motel about a half a mile before where we slept, so we had spent the entire day ahead of him. He caught up to us during our "lunch nap," which we decided was a new holiday in hot places -- the time when you stop biking, eat lunch, and nap, while waiting for the heat to turn down a bit.

Anyways, Tim ended up riding with us for the rest of the day. We stopped at a place called "Cook's Station," which has a bit of novelty value for me since my mother's maiden name is "Cook." They had good food, and some of the best prices I'd seen (though I guess we were now out of the tourist-ville of the coast and into hot-ville of the mountains).

We had started at 2,000 feet that day (2,000 feet of elevation, that is) and in the heat risen to about 5,000, so we were pretty pooped. Shortly after eating we found an awesome campsite somewhere around 5,700.

And the view was fantastic.


We also hung our food that night, being we were in bear country.

The next morning was a climb and many views (too many pictures to post here) to our second highest peak of the trip (I think -- or at least, our highest peak thus far) (our highest peak being yet to come, 10,800 somewhere in the rockies). We didn't reach it until about 2:00 that day, but it was well received.

In retrospect, it wasn't that hard to breathe at 1.5 miles high.


And it was all downhill from there -- but really -- we made about 20 miles in just under an hour, and quickly reached my fourth state, Nevada.

Their sign was sideways first.


And honestly, between now and then, I don't have much to say. There are some beautiful moments.

Sun goes down... eyesore goes down, too.


And our warmshowers hosts in Carson City were wonderful. Oh, so wonderful. I wish I had taken a photo of that breakfast. It was the best breakfast of the entire trip. But then... there was more Nevada. We took the 50, which is apparently known as "The Loneliest Highway in America."

If you ask your parents about the trip to school every day (or if they ask their parents), you will likely receive the answer...

"I had to walk ten miles, uphill both ways, into the wind, and oh... it was always snowing."

That's about what Nevada feels like. Okay, minus the snow. But it's so flat and long that you see roads you think are going to take ten minutes, and two hours later, you're only halfway there.

20 miles later, we looked up and saw the same thing.


Of course, the cool thing about Nevada is that once we got away from the Californian border (which apparently is where all of Nevada's 50 people are), it was easy to find a place to stealth camp.

So... maybe just a little to the left?


Okay, so it's getting quite late here (for those of us who sleep by the sun), and the internet is getting slower... I guess that's what you get for sharing it with the rest of a motel on a Friday night. In any case, I guess I'm not all caught up -- I'll finish Nevada next time. And as of tomorrow, I'll be in Utah!

With love from Ely,
Kyle.

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