I woke up early again. Between the rain, the train, and the crashing surf, it was a restless night, but I still woke up eager. I was heading to Ventura to stay with Janeanne and Fred. I’m pretty sure I met them long ago, but that was practically in another life, so I wasn’t sure what I would find. Ventura was less than 20 miles down the road, and after the deep grind down from Monterey, that seemed like a hop and a skip. My legs didn’t entirely agree. With all the hard riding, and my new trick of going faster than ever before, I was about as sore as I had been since the first week. The difference, of course, was the knowledge that I could go as far as I needed, and then some.

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I may be riding a bicycle across the country, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am basically lazy. I hate the morning when I have to walk 200 yards to the restroom. I hate the packing and unpacking. I hate the beginning of each ride, and there’s a lesson in that. Every time I hesitated at the beginning, it was probably a mistake that made life harder later. Procrastination.

On this morning, I really resented the distance to the restroom. In some campgrounds, it’s no big deal to wander off into the woods and water a tree. In this one, wedged ungracefully between a farm field and a sluggish, muddy river, that wasn’t really an option. By the time I made it to the restroom, things were pretty desperate. I felt fortunate to make it in time. Ahhhhhh. Much better. My outlook improved radically in less than 60 seconds. That didn’t really improve the city park. It was grubby.

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I picked a good night to get a room. The predictions of heavy rain finally came true. I could hear it lashing the windows all night. The morning swept the sky clear and promised a day of puffy white clouds and tailwinds. I milked check-out time even more than usual since the daylight time shift occurred last night. I got an extra hour of goofing off. Nice.

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I’m still trying to wrap my head around the last few days. If you believe in coincidence, then this has been one incredible series of them. If you don’t, then this experience will reinforce your belief that everything happens for a reason, because it has all fit too perfectly for it to be otherwise.

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I was dragging my feet on riding south to Big Sur. It was one of those intuitive things. I met Kate at a gas station. I told her what I was doing, and she talked to me about some people who could possibly help me with publicity. That was weird because I had been thinking of the thousand mile mark as the point at which I would start working on publicity. Here I was in Monterey, just past that mark, and someone shows up to talk about publicity.

Only later did I find out that I couldn’t have gone anyway. Highway 1 has been closed about 30 miles south of here, due to fire in Lucia. It opened up partially late today, and should be ready to ride this weekend.

Kate took me to her place… Well, the place she was managing yesterday, and called her friends. Dale came last night for a visit and we had a nice talk about a whole range of things. This morning he brought his friend and comrade, Sheila, and they taped a television interview with me. Tomorrow, I’m doing a radio interview on Sheila’s show.

You can listen to it live on the internet, around 3 PM Pacific time. Here’s the link.

www.krxa540.com

You can also call in with questions a 1-888-579-2540 or 1-831-899-5792

Update***

Well, I had my first radio interview on Saturday. It was fun. Sheila was amazing as she talked and worked the console and threw papers around. I can’t imagine how anyone could keep up with so much detail at once. Thank you, Sheila.

Sheila does all kinds of interesting things. Here’s her site. http://sheilagale.com/