35 miles in 3 hours
I woke up in the middle of the night, not suspecting that anything was wrong, but confused as to why I woke up. Suddenly I realized that my face was wet, and not only that but it was getting wetter. RAIN! I hustled up, threw my shoes on, hopped outside of my tent, and hastily threw up the rain fly (which I never put up, mostly due to laziness). With that emergency taken care of I went back inside and back to sleep.
When I actually awoke in the morning, I noticed that it was still raining, and because my I did not stake down my rainfly, it was only half effective. I was nice and dry though, so I sat inside and pondered what to do next.
I ran outside to brush my teeth and all that, and noticed that it really wasn’t too bad out. I also didn’t see my friends from the night before, and was sad that they probably got rained on in the middle of the night and had to move on. I then returned to my tent to again sit and plot.
I eventually packed everything up inside my tent, loaded my bike, and then quickly packed my soaking wet tent. Yuk. On my way out of the campground I saw my friends from Berkeley again, who had chilled under and around the canopied restrooms and showers when it started to rain. I said my goodbyes to them, and headed north, into the rain.
I got through the famous tunnel that terrifies bikers, and it was pretty terrifying. It wasn’t a long tunnel, but it was pretty narrow, and it was nearly impossible to stay to the right; you just kept getting sucked back to the middle.
The Tunnel
Afterwards I started up by far the biggest hill of the trip thus far. This sucker was not only steep, but it was long.
And Slow Bikes
Rolling Hills
Looking Back about Halfway up the Hill.
I am a part of the \’slower traffic\’.
I spent probably an hour going 4 mph up this hill. I was rewarded with an easy ride through the sun down into Lompoc. It was around 12:30 when I arrived and stopped for some fast food. With no campground within striking distance, a right knee that was having some issues, and a soaking wet tent that needed to dry, I decided to stop at a Motel 6 and make it a very short day.
The hangout for the night.
I spent the rest of the day doing laundry and sat at Starbucks for several hours working on the site. I also bought some supplies in Albertsons and ate a few more meals. All in all a relaxing and productive night.