Day in the life of Isaac

An epic day in the life of Isaac on the ride….

Day 36 – (Sat 5^th) San Luis Obispo to Lompoc (100K)

Woke up early after sleeping in the children’s play ground of the church we stayed at in San Luis Obispo . I always enjoy waking up out side by the light of the morning sun.  As usual some get up but most wait until the last minute, and past wake up call, to get out of bed and pack up. People sleeping out side bring their things in and pack up with the rest inside. As we are getting cleaned up a breakfast crew, lead by Ben, created us some amazing breakfast bagels with all the fixin’s. We finished breakfast really quickly and got everything cleaned up really quickly – then it took an extra hour half to deal with small tasks. We had a morning meeting and got photocopied directions from the church to Lompoc, our next destination.

I stayed behind to play the piano, similar to the day we left Montereywhen  I stayed to play the church organ. As opposed to then though, I didn’t stay as long so when I left caught up to sweep real quick – they were at the San Luis Obispo bike shop getting some new tires. Sweep (the last two riders, charged with making sure everyone in front of them is ok for the day) was Emma and Sonia with Alain joining them for the day, and a friend from the party last night Aaron, who decided to ride with us. Al and Sonia where both getting new tires, Alain was because he had a hole in his tire and the side wall on Sonia’s old tire blew out  so she now had Sean’s old tire…. which seemed to just be lemon and Sonia  already had a flat on it. Aaron helped Sonia get her new tire on and I helped Alain. We both get the new tires on, but when Sonia began pumping up her front tire the tube on the new back tire had been pinched and went BANG. So Aaron buys her a new tube and put the back tire back on and fiiinally we all roll out of the bike shop.

After the bike shop, since it was about noon, before we left town we stopped for some of SLO’s infamous frozen yogurt for pre-lunch. Since we were there last night I was able to make an even better mixer of frozen yogurt and toppings than before.

Back on the road again with Aaron leading us out of San Luis Obispo (SLO) Emma got her first flat of the trip. We quickly found the hole in the tube but it took all of us looking at the tire a couple times to find the culprit – a small piece of glass slowly made its way through the tire and the other side into the tube. We patched the tube. We tried using a dollar bill to cover the small hole in the tire but I kept on losing the hole in the tire when putting it back on the rim, so we ended up just throwing a patch on the inside of the tire instead. We got the tire and tube on the wheel with no further problems.  

Before getting to lunch we took a short cut that some us hoped would avoid hills… but really was a shorter but much steeper hill. It was indeed a short cut though as a cyclist who past us went the other way and we got up much faster than him. It was a good fun hill.

(WINDY, OVERCAST)

We continue on with no problems all the way to lunch. At lunch we all get to eat well – wraps and sandwiches with many topping. I got hunting for some tomato in the trailer and found chive and basil – garlic Avioli was also available, which wonderful and caring Karin brought out with me in mind. They were starting to clean up while I was still eating, handing me all the leftovers. We biked out from lunch and gain Kamila in our pod, who was still at lunch with hersore knee. She told us we should check if Emily has left the library yet so when we get to the turn off to the library Sonia and I scout out in to the head wind to see weather or not Emily is still there…. she was not so we went back to the group and biked on.

(SUNNY)

It is beautiful out in the rolling hills….

Emma had been feeling nauseous all day and so she needed to stop. We stopped and she told every one to go on and I would wait with her until she felt better or if we needed to call the van for her to get picked up. Once Emma convinced the rest to go ahead we found a viable place to wait for the van because we had called them, and Alain left his phone with us. So we sat and talked until the van got there.

I was now biking alone, thoroughly enjoying the view – it was really pretty out there in the evening.  I spaced out so thought I had gone too far and I remembered a turn off to the town we were going to, maybe 6 or 7 miles back so I went back and on that route.

(FOGGY AND WINDY)

I climb up and down hills by the air force base a long way then though a town, then finally a get to Lompoc and it is getting dark. Since I was not taking the same route the directions I had did not help me much. So I ask many locals, most saying they did not know where it was, some sending me far in the wrong direction.  But got there about 930pm, heated up the leftovers, brushed my teeth, told my story of being lost, Emily drew a cool looking compass rose on my foot, then I went to bed on a pew after reading.

BY isaac