37 miles in 3.25 hours
I wake up rather early (not surprisingly) and lay in the tent for a long while doing nothing. This is because I know I have a short day ahead of me, and also because it is quite cold out. I eventually get up and pack up and head up the road. I quickly blow my back tire, which has had a slow leak for a while, so I throw a new tube in. However, as I am doing this, it begins to rain. Brilliant.
Anyway I trudge on past various Naval Bases (there are either several here or the one that is there is HUGE).
Military Aircraft
Nothing says fun like a Missile Park
Yet more of the Missile Park
I stop for some T-Bell for an early lunch in a cute town called Port Hueneme, and talk to two people there – one who bought a Surly Long Haul Trucker frame (the bike I have) for his brother who turned it into a fixed-gear (!!), and another older couple whose daughter had done a bike tour around Europe with some friends when she was in high school.
Houses with docks
More of the River
I headed back out into the gloom and made it to Ventura pretty early. I called my Warmshowers host and then found a Starbucks. This always seems to be more of a hassle than it would seem because when I search for them half of the time they turn out to be the kind in grocery stores, which is not what I want. Eventually I found one, spent a few hours updating the website, and then headed over to my hosts’ house, not sure what I would find.
Anyway, I spotted the house pretty quickly because of the Race Across America painted van sitting in the driveway. This is a fairly large cross country bike race that occurs every year. It turns out that one of my hosts, Nicole, holds the record for fastest two woman team in this race (around 8 days… yikes). RAAM seems like a good time, and is something I would like to do recreationally one day, perhaps in a 8 man team (definitely not two… nothing recreational about that).
Turns out Jae and Nicole were great hosts, and I got a shower, to do laundry, and a fantastic dinner. Jae, a bike mechanic, even looked at my bike and made some tweaks for me. Thanks guys for being great hosts. Anyway, shortly after dinner everyone did some reading and then went to bed. I suggest that any tourers check out www.warmshowers.org.