Today was hard. It started out with rain and killer hills, but of course nice scenery. We got up at our usual 4:30AM, but had mechanical probs with my bike early on. Kristi was especially down, partly due to this being her birthday, and partly because she (we) have engaged in entirely way too much "end talk". San Diego talk this early is not wise because it makes you trunky.
The rain quit about 10 and we shed our rain gear. The weather here goes from rain to warm and back to cold very quickly. You never can get a comfortable riding mix with the proper clothes for very long. (The veterans of the Alaska trip will all have a laugh at this declaration!) We stopped at a lame bike shop in Brookings, did not get my problem fixed but wasted an hour and a half. (My middle front chain ring is worn out and will not hold any torque without skipping. Also my derailer spring will no longer pull the chain into the smaller sprockets on the cluster. Yes--we cleaned all the cables and the derailer and lubed them so there are no hang-ups--the spring is just worn out.) Then we stopped at a shop in Cresent City but they didn't have the right parts either. So I have to stay out of my middle ring, which is a pain. I end up cross-chaining a lot. Finally we got back on the road with only 20 miles to go at 2. Right out of town we hit a 10 percent that took us an hour and a half to climb. On the upside, the view from the top was spectacular. We could see so far out across the ocean you could see the curvature of the earth. The downhill was also awesome.
The first part of the day we road past lots of those postcard views of beaches with huge green and grey velvety rocks jutting into the surf, many with a lone tree growing from the top. I told Kristi that someone ought to write a poem about them and call them the silent sentinels of the sea. The last part of the day we rode through a giant redwood forest with unearthly sized trees. Dozens were 8 to 10 feet in diameter. We definitely paid the price to see it all.
Later,
- Richard
I forgot some fun things we did for Kristi's birthday. Earlier in the trip she had mentioned she wanted some pink shoelaces for her Converse, to give her one girly thing to cherish. I kept an eye out for some but to no avail. The night before her b-day I got some white ones and also a little gift bag. Matt and I stayed up after Kristi went to bed and colored the white laces with a sharpie. We presented them to her on her birthday, along with some new hair ties. She now has her colored laces. Another thing I forgot was that we saw several sea arches, which were very cool. Bye.
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