Day: 84

Day 84 - 2.JPG

The sun came up, and I woke up. Didn’t even bother to check the time until I had broken down my camp and was about to set out for the days ride. 7:10am. The sun was just breaking through the fog and mountains as I hit PCH. I rode hard for the first couple of hours today and made to to Ventura (after a few construction detours through Oxnard) by 10. I had decided to take a break here and accomplish two goals; grocery shopping/breakfast and a blog update. The grocery shopping was the most important because I didn’t want to be stranded 4 miles from food in my campsite like I was yesterday. A couple cans of tuna, pitas, carrots, apple, orange, cheese, cottage cheese, OJ and a bottle of water.

I found a Starbucks in the parking lot of the grocerey store and went in for a cup of tea and to see how much T-mobile wanted for access to there “Hot-Spots” (Wi-fi). $39.99 for a month, not to bad, so I paid for my first month, knowing that now the 12,800 Starbucks locations would become blog centers for Rob. After about an hour of drinking my tea, blogging, playing on myspace, and checking my stocks I headed out to get back on the road with hopes of making it the next 20 or so miles to Carpinteria State Beach to set up camp. The ride took me until 1:30, but when I arrived the Rangers wouldn’t let me check in until 4pm, it was a measure to battle vagrancy in the campground. I headed down to the beach to get some reading, napping and writing done while I waited.

Two and a half hours pass quickly when you are laying on the beach doing absolutely nothing, before I knew it, it was four and I paid for my spot and headed over to set up my camp. After my tent was up and I consumed a snack containing some of the aforementioned ingredients I set out on my bike to see this little town of Carpinteria. As I was cruising around I passed a movie theater which had the animated film, Over The Hedge, starting right then. I paid my $5.75 and headed in, happy to be indoors for an hour and a half after a day in the sun.

After the movie I went back to the camp and started talking to the one other guy in the Hike & Bike area, a borderline vagrant, who was pissed that the rangers wouldn’t let him stay for more than one night. I heard his story about his tragic break-up with his girlfriend, his wreaked back from riding dirt bikes in the desert, his time on a horse ranch and his career as a screen writer with no actual screen credits. After the one Budweiser he gave me I excused myself to head down to the water to get some pictures of the evening sun. I had a nice romantic walk for one; I followed it up with some curry at the Thai place down the street and made my way back to camp to try to get some writing in before the sun set.