Live for the Path

64 miles in 6 hours

I got up in the morning and Nicole decided to ride with me for a while, which was quite useful because the path out of town was a little confusing. (They seemed rather stunned that I didn’t have any maps. I dared not tell them that I had recently sent home my cooking supplies as well. Everyone tours their own way.) Anyway she rode me all the way up to Carpinteria, which is the first suburb of Santa Barbara. I felt bad for being slow (since she is a world class athlete and all, and I am not to say the least – plus I was fully loaded and she was on a road bike). Thanks again to Jae and Nicole for being so inviting!

Mountains and Clouds. Two things California has a lot of.

Getting close to Santa Barbara.

Another shot.

After that I headed through Santa Barbara, and rode along the beach. This was a nice because it was beautiful out and because Santa Barbara is a very attractive town. Wow. Anyway, I eventually got through the downtown beach section, sadly.

A park on the ocean.

I think that is Santa Cruz Isle.

I took the ‘Coastal Route’ as opposed to the ‘Crosstown Route’ at Nicole’s urging, despite ‘a small hill’. It was the first small hill I have ever seen that required frequent switchbacks to climb! Despite that, it was a beautiful route, and I am glad I did it.

This would be poor.

Pretty

Mountains and Livestock

After I got through town and to the 101, I stupidly realized that I didn’t eat since a late breakfast, nor did I pick anything up for later. This was poor because the park I was going to for the night was in the middle of nowhere. So I turned around and went back to town and stopped in a 7-11 for trail mix (three kinds!) and at a Baja Fresh, which has somehow become very expensive in the last few years.

Having taken care of that, I hopped back on the road and went back to the 101 and got on it. I did around 10-15 freeway miles before hitting my exit, and the beautiful state beach that awaited. I paid the $5 for the hiker/biker site, wrote some for my blog, ate some trail mix, and turned in early, with the ocean in the background.

Refugio

As I was laying in the tent I heard these people suddenly chatting next to me. How strange I thought, so I put my glasses on and took a look. Two more bike tourists had arrived! I excitedly donned my shirt and hopped outside. It turns out that the two of them, boy and girl, had just graduated from Berkeley and were doing San Francisco to Los Angeles. They were really going bare bones, with almost nothing, just a pretty sweet stereo strapped to the back of his bike. They just had a tarp to lay down and some sleeping bags. I was a little jealous of their set up. I chatted with them for a while, and then returned to my tent to go to bed.