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Day 235
Soquel, CA to Santa Cruz, CA The thought that it is Valentine’s Day does not occur to me at all. I’m just happy that the pouring rain has let up and that I’m still warm and dry. Unfortunately the feeling doesn’t last. I get up and begin the extremely unpleasant process of putting on my…
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Day 234
Carmel, CA to Soquel, CA I wake up earlier than Buzz and Cheryl. Looking around Zach’s old room, I see jazz posters, bike pictures, and a picture of Zach meeting Dizzy Gillespie. There’s a bike quilt with panels made by various family members for Buzz’s 60th birthday. I take a shower and poke around until…
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Day 233
Carmel Highlands, CA to Carmel, CA Shileyanne provides yet another very pleasant breakfast with boiled eggs, cereal, and yummy scones. I wait a while to meet Maxine, who’s having a little trouble finding us. When she arrives I like her immediately. She’s an attractive, alive personality. She gives me her number and invites me to…
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Day 232
Carmel Highlands, CA I was planning to leave this morning, but it’s raining like hell again and I just don’t feel like it. Shirleyanne has to go to work but she invites me to stay another night and meet another of Mom’s writer friends who’s visiting tomorrow, Maxine. I gratefully agree and spend the morning…
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Day 231
Lucia, CA to Carmel Highlands, CA I laugh in the foggy morning when I see that I was only a quarter-mile from a National Forest campground. Ha! I was probably better off in my private, free site. This is a grand part of the coast, even in the rain. The bluffs and promontories are pronounced…
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Book: Travels with Charley / John Steinbeck
America, 1960. Has anything changed?
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Day 230
Morro Bay, CA to Lucia, CA I get up at my usual time, around 7. No sound from the boys’ tent, so I take a shower. They’re still dead, so I make my own breakfast, then take a walk. Around 9 I yell at them, get up now or kiss the free breakfast goodbye. Mark…
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Day 229
Lompoc, CA to Morro Bay, CA A cool morning. I’m soon climbing onto some dry hills past La Purisma Mission and the local cement plant. Before topping the ridge I look back over the strange misty Lompoc valley. It’s typical California – it doesn’t seem to fit here at all. The ride down the other…
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Day 228
El Capitan State Beach, CA to Lompoc, CA The morning is surprisingly cold and breezey. I ride along the coastal bike trail until I come to a barrier where it has washed out. I refuse to ride back two miles, so I haul the bike up to some railroad tracks, push it along awhile, then…
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Day 227
Oxnard, CA to El Capitan State Beach, CA Oxnard is agricultural land, then labor housing, then a huge wealthy community of moored boats. Here I can find no breakfast, and I have to pee by the road out of desperation. In Ventura there is food, and to the north are a couple of rising coastal…