Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

An afternoon with my department at the Anaheim Angels vs. Tampa Bay Rays game.  This is my 2nd baseball game ever and it's burning up out here!  Fortunately we're in the shade :-)  I've never seen a game with 12 runs by the 6th inning.  Lots of action for a baseball game!

Day 6 - Santa Barbara to Los Angeles - 97 Miles

I just crossed 400 miles for this trip in Oxnard! The view from the Rock is awesome!

Day 5 - Lompoc to Santa Barbara - 58 Miles

We rode from Lompoc to Santa Barbara today and the hills were very long and challenging! The sun finally came out and stayed out and it was a really beautiful day! Santa Barbara is such a California spot. You have to love it. We had dinner at the Fish House right across the street from the beach and beach. Very enchanting and the food was tasty too. I've been videotaping most of the tour with this helmet camera and I've had issues with finding a 16 GB memory card and finding a computer nearby where I can download and upload the files. I finally found a Kinkos somewhat nearby and have been here for way to long transferring the footage. Hopefully I'll be able to make something out of it being that this is my first time videotaping anything and this helmet camera and tricky when trying to make sure you're focused the correct way. If I can create a watchable video I'll post it. I'm hoping to be out of Kinkos in a few minutes and back on my bike to the hotel and to sleep. Day 5 has me tired and looking forward to tomorrow when we roll home to LA.

Enjoy the journey!

Day 4 - San Luis Obispo to Lompoc - 58 Miles

Today we're riding from San Luis Obispo to Lompoc and I'm looking forward to the days ride. I want to sleep in and even though this is our second short day, I have to get up, get dressed, find food, and be ready to roll by 9:00 am. I woke up around 6:45am, but have been in and out of sleep for the past hour. I guess I'll get up now and stretch.

We rode to Pismo Beach and had breakfast at the Seaside Cafe and Bakery. It's a cute little restaurant, with an nice ambiance and good food. We had our first flat of the trip and a broken derailleur. The flat was an easy fix, but we were concerned about the broken derailleur. Renee made it the to a bike shop at the end of the ride and the shop owner didn't have one to fit her bike so he called one of his buddies who happened to be moving his daughter's furniture. The buddy had a used one and quickly brought it to the shop to be installed on Renee's bike. That was definitely a blessing being that it was at the end of the day and it was delivered and installed immediately!

I met two ladies from Holland staying at our hotel. Liesbeth and Elizabeth are 5 1/2 weeks into a 6 weeks bike tour from Vancouver to San Diego! They are camping out and carrying some serious touring bags on their bikes. They are rollin' for real! We exchanged emails and hopefully I'll get to hear all about their tour when it's over and share mine with them.

Eric and I ended up having dinner at Mi Amore's restaurant and their veggie lasagna was delicious! We headed to the hotel me to blog and chill and him to hang out with his crew.

Enjoy the journey!

Day 3 - San Simeon to San Luis Obispo - 42 Miles

Our first short day!  I survived yesterday even though I couldn't complete the entire ride.  My shoulder seems to be better and I got to sleep in!  Yay!

Since we slept in, had to do laundry and have breakfast, we didn't have time to do the Hearst Castle tour, so we just visited the museum.  It was beautiful and interesting and I'm looking forward to doing a tour the next time I'm in town.

On our way to San Luis Obispo we passed through a town named Harmony with a population of 18!  I got a big kick out of that.  I  got to see elephant seals for.the first time and that was awesome!  They were huge and a few of them seem to be playing.

My ride was beautiful and I've accepted that I might have to finish out my tour in pain because my shoulder seems to be reacting to the hill climbing.

Enjoy the journey!

Day 2 - Marina to San Simeon - 115 miles, well not quite

After riding 122 miles to Marina yesterday, Day 2 started out much better.  My shoulder started to spasm off and on toward the end of the Day 1, so I took some Tylenol and figured it would be better the next day.   Well Day 2 - Marina to San Simeon was a harder day with 8,000 feet of climbing.  I started out ok, but by mile 30 or 40 the spasms were off the chain and I was fighting back tears and trying to climb hills at the same time.  Attempting these two together doesn't work very well since what ended up happening was me hyperventillating instead, until I could pull it together.  This happened at least twice, but I didn't cry! Lol!  I was however in an unbelievable amount of pain.  

I made it 47 miles to Big Sur.  We made it to a restaurant which was good because I was straving too.  Eric was looking very uncomfortable and nervous.  Poor baby!  I felt bad for him, but I couldn't hide the pain I was feeling.  Our SAG was suppose to meet us in the first town, which was where we were, but he wasn't there and we had no idea what type of hills were ahead to get to him:-(

We ordered some breakfast and Eric decided to ride ahead to have SAG come back for me.  On his way out to move our bikes, he ran into Paul and DeeDee from San Luis Obispo.  Paul offered to give me a ride to the next town where hopefully SAG would be waiting.  That was very sweet and generous of them especially since they were there celebrating their wedding anniversary and didn't know me from Eve.  Of course after Eric came back to tell me the good news my first thoughts were "this is like hitch hiking!", "they could be crazy!", "I could end up in a freezer!".  I know that's the big city folk on me.  Always question motives of kindness from strangers.  I know that's crazy, but we do live in a crazy world. Lol!

Well just as Paul loaded up my bike, Ray from SAG rolled up.  I was sooooo happy to see him!  Although Paul and DeeDee were super cool, I didn't want to inconvenience them or really roll with strangers when I was physically not at my best and couldn't run fast if I needed to.:-)

After Ray picked me up, I changed out of my wet clothes, talked to him a bit, let Eric know I was properly retrieved, rode to the next SAG stop, and went to sleep.  I was a hot mess and hurting!  I was thinking I am too old for this kind of foolishness!  I need to preserve this body and not beat it up on a 6 day bike tour!  What was I thinking!

I regrouped a bit after my nap, but the pain was coming and going.  I'm glad I didn't try to keep going through Big Sur because the hills were ridiculous and the climb was 3,000 feet more than mapmyride.com route showed.  I really would have been in tears!  I decided to jump back in at Ragged Point though, after the big climbs, and finish up the last 19 miles of the day.  I probably climbed a total of 4,000 feet and completed 66 miles out of 115.

We make it to the hotel and it doesn't have a laundry, but the Courtesy Inn down the road does.  Of course they're closed for the night, so we have to wait and do laundry in the morning.  Fortunately the next three days are short days so we didn't need to leave early.

It seems Tylenol is becoming my friend on this bike tour!  Lol!

Enjoy the journey!

Day 1 - San Francisco to Marina - 122 Miles

The day is here!  Friday the 13th and the start of our San Francisco to Los Angeles Bike Tour!  We ended up having 8 cyclist and 1 SAG support (a last minute, very pleasant surprise since we were planning to ride with backpacks)!  We also had our own personal guide, Royston from Oakland, to give us the best route out of the city and onto the Great Highway.  An avid cyclist himself, he hopped on his bike and rode with us from the Great Highway to Devil's Slide.  He was definitely a blessing and just a cool guy.

We made a couple of wrong turns, got lost, frustrated, encountered unmarked bike path entrances, got rained on, fogged, were cold in the month of August, and exhausted.  All of this happened over 122 miles, about 5,200 feet of climbing and 12 hours on the way to Marina!  Just reading what I just wrote seems insane, but we did it!

We were hungry by the time we made it to the hotel, but also needed to do laundry.  Since there wasn't one on site, Eric walked a few blocks to the laundry and saw the sign that said the last wash is at 8:00pm and they close at 9:00pm. Well it was either a few minutes before or after 8:00pm and he needed to get change next door because the one inside wasn't working.  By the time he gets back, they are closed for the night. So that means we have not just dirty clothes, but 122 miles worth of dirty clothes!  Not good.  We were handwashing our cycling clothes at 9:00pm hoping they'd be dry before we left at 6:00am in the morning.  They were not dry.  We ended up blow drying our stuff in the morning and I was thankful I packed an extra pair of shorts or I would have had issues.  LOL!

This was the most miles I'd ever riden in one day and I was glad to see it come to an end!  The view was beautiful, but those hills tried to punk me into believing they ruled the road.  I didn't fall for it!  Now let's see what Day 2 holds in store for me!

Enjoy the journey!


Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

Playing in San Francisco

After starting the day with a delicious breakfast at Nob Hill Grille, we headed to the crooked street on Lombard by cable car.  It was fun riding up and down the hills while seeing amazing views!  We walked up Lombard St. and got our workout on for the day.  Then we headed to the Park Chalet restaurant in Golden Gate Park. We took 2 buses to get there and saw some very interesting people along the way. The ambiance of the restaurant was cool and relaxing, and very beautiful.  The food was tasty and I enjoyed a guava strawberry lemonade that cost way to much. Now I'm doing laundry, then headed for dinner and sleep.

Tomorrow is the big day! We roll out at 6:00am!

Enjoy the journey!

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San Francisco

We made it to San Francisco!  I love it here, even though it rained on me when I got off the train.  We had lunch at Fisherman's Wharf and bought rainier cherries and giant nectarines!  Our hotel wasn't ready when we arrived, so we rode to a bike shop and sports shop to buy spare tires because I forgot to bring one.:-( I'm about to shower, enjoy one of those nectarines and hopefully take a long nap :-)

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The Kick Off

It is 2:00 in the a.m. and we finally made it on the Amtrak bus.  This is our first of three legs enroute to San Francisco for our bike tour.  Why did the bus driver try to tell us we had to take the next bus because he didn't have room for our bikes?  Well you know that wasn't going to happen after we've paid for our tickets right.  We are now on the bus rollin' to Bakersfield!  I am exhausted and think I'm beginning to suffer from sleep deprivation. We arrive in Bakersfield in 3 hours.

Enjoy the journey!

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Packing to Roll!!!

How am I going to survive living out of a backpack for 8 days? I have 6 days until I roll out to San Francisco for my 6 day bike tour and I've decided my little Camelbak backpack is not going to cut it, so I went to REI and got an Osprey backpack that's lightweight and can hold more of my stuff. Now the challenge is what do I really need and will I be able to carry it all on my back for 6 days on my bike??? I packed some of the stuff I'm thinking of taking and will do a trial ride tonight, but when I picked it up this morning and carried it to my car, well let's say...it wasn't as light as I'd hoped it would be and all of my stuff wasn't even in there!

I need some packing tips for a long bike tour! I'm googling it now because this isn't looking good. LOL!

Enjoy the journey!

Do You Think I Can Really Do This Thing?

I just turned 39 years old, love to sleep in and take naps during the day, still somewhat impatient, felt my belly jiggle the other day while driving (that was not cute!), have and regularly use multiple skin and hair care products, and need to have various options to choose from when dressing.

I have been training to do a bike tour from San Francisco to Los Angeles that will begin in 9 days. I will be hanging out in SF for 2 days before we set out to ride for 6 days back to LA. Everything that I will need for my trip will be carried in a Camelbak backpack, except for my food and hydration stuff. Ummm...this is the part of the trip that is not all that ideal. This will definitely be the challenge of a lifetime both physically and mentally.

I'd like to know your thoughts. Given what you know about me, do you think I can really do this ride or even if I should try?

Enjoy the journey!

I Am Ready!

I miss you and look forward to getting back to some sense of normalcy.

I have 10 days, really 9 since it's almost midnight, until I leave for my No. Cal to So. Cal (San Francisco to Los Angeles) bike tour! I'm excited, tired, anxious, missing my life, and ready to roll. I just got home from a much needed acupressure massage from Natura Spa in Koreatown. It was wonderful and I'm looking for to some really good sleep tonight so I'll have some energy tomorrow to start this training business all over again. This week will be my last three days of real training before I begin to taper off my workouts until my tour. I am looking forward to my adventure and am ready to do this man!!

Enjoy the journey!