Day 48, September 18th 2007 (Manchester,CA to Larkspur,CA)

I was up again this morning at about the same time as yesterday. It was still dark outside and I was surprised to see a couple of other riders up as well. Since it was still a little dark outside I had to say something for them to even realize that I was up and moving around as well. Although the bikers were actually motorcyclers it was cool to chat with someone else that was on a trip before taking off in the morning. They told me some unfortunate news that I wasn't sure if I had actually wanted to hear. They had started their trip from Arizona and were headed up the coast. I could see that there were only two of them, but they told me they had started with three. Just the day before they were riding up highway 1 and one of their buddies had taken a corner too fast and had paid for his mistake. A few broken ribs later, he was unable to attend the rest of the trip. He had to be rushed to a nearby hospital and it sounded like it was a fairly bad crash. It was unfortunate to hear for a couple of reasons. The main reason is the obvious, that he had been injured on a good two week vacation he was enduring, but also the fact that this was only 30 miles south of where we were and I would be coming into the same area early this morning. I wished them good luck on the rest of their ride and was hoping safe travels for them and hoping that I would make it safely through the aggressive terrain. As I started packing up my gear I instantly realized that I had been robbed last night. I had taken down my tent and had just about started to put everything away and directly in front of my eyes was the clear evidence. My bread had been taken by some raccoons, those dirty little devils. They had taken all of my bread out of my saddle bag and had snacked away at it all. I had slept so well last night that I hadn't heard a thing, but it was all gone. I was planning on having a couple of peanut butter sandwiches before the ride, but nature had made a new decision for me. About 20 miles into my crazy and beautiful ride I ran into a town with a small cafe. The food was great and I didn't stay long before I was on the road and on my way again. I was now full on energy and wanted to put in as many miles as possible before I felt tired. Not long into the ride I realized how difficult it was going to be to put in the miles I wanted to for the day. i was about half way, 70 miles, into the ride and I was struggling to keep going. It was around 2 in the afternoon and I pulled into a small town to grab a meal before I went back out on the road. I wanted to eat and then go as soon as possible, but my body wouldn't allow me to get up for about an hour. It wanted to recuperate a little before I started Gun ho into the ride again. I knew that by pushing it along the coast as I had done was making it nearly impossible to stay on track. I still had a good 60 miles to go for the day and because my body had depleted it was up to my mentality to keep me on track. With the determination of making it to a nice bed and having a nice shower, I pushed forward. Each mile became longer as I continued to ride, but the view was incredible. I was surprised as I headed from the coast to little farmland inside of the coast a little. It was an incredible change and lead to one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Being from Iowa, I'm used to seeing cows out in the pasture. As I turned towards the ocean from the farmlands, I started to ride on more cliffs with the ocean straight down and with no rails. Directly in front of me were about 10 cows. They were just grazing on the cliffs by the ocean, as if this were a normal thing. It was such a crazy sight to see and even crazier because they were so close together, as not to fall over the edge. I could only imagine what cow tipping would be like in this area, as the cow would never make it back up and you might even be able to knock more than one off just by getting one. It was so weird and it gave me a little more of a reason to get out of this crazy area and into a normal society. I pushed with all the remaining energy that I had and barely made it up a few of the hills towards the end. I was about 20 miles from my destination, when I pulled off of highway 1. I was able to take myself more inland for the rest of the ride and it felt great to not have as many hills. There were more flats in front of me and I was relieved. I took myself through a nice forest area with a couple of campgrounds and then I was back to high volume traffic. The town I was headed towards, Larkspur, was a little north of San Francisco and was just up ahead. From talking to a good friend of mine in Ames, Andrew Burgason, I was told to give his aunt and uncle a call, as they lived in the area. I had been relieved to hear that they would love to have me stay with them, and I was now on a journey towards their house. I followed the instructions that they had given me the evening before and after taking one wrong turn it was a good couple of miles more that I tacked onto my trip for the day. Eventually I showed up at their door and was ready to fall over. They showed me where my bike could live for the next couple of days, and then where I could live. Before I took a shower I was looking at an incredible feast that they had prepared for the evening. It was a great home cooked meal and I couldn't have asked for anything more as I was so exhausted from the trip. I was able to meet the family of the Clydes: Mary and Todd, and their three kids, Ryan, Rachel, and Elliott. It was great to be in the presence of such a nice big family and it made me feel more at home. After spending an incredible evening getting to know everyone I showered and headed for bed. I was so reluctant to have contacted them and enjoyed one of the greatest rest that I've had in awhile since on the road.
Daily mileage: 126.3 miles
Average Speed: 13.0 mph
Total mileage: 3,096.2 miles