[This was written on the 4th day, it starts out discussing the afternoon of the third day 3]
Well with 7.5 liters of water and a full stomach I set off from Austin. A meal you didn't have to cook yourself does a lot for your sense of well being. I felt a lot more confident with the extra water the 70 mi to Eureka doesn't seem so intimidating when I know I won't have to worry about filling up.
The grade up to Austin Pass was pretty grueling but not super long, definitely better than the climb to the Yuba Pass. The other two passes were nothing just long light grades. I camped in this beautiful valley and got some great pictures of the sunset.
I'm going to start of the reflective part of the email now.
In an earlier email I mentioned Sand Mountain, now for those of you who haven't seen it before as the name implies it's a mountain of sand. The really crazy part is that Sand Mt. has crossed the highway and proceeded to work itself up into the hills on the edge of the valley. (Warning inside joke:) You don't need Martin to point out that with patience you can move mountains.
Yesterday in Austin I met this fellow named Larry Edwards by total chance, the only reason I paid him any attention was he was trying to order something without meat. I figured I'd save myself some trouble and eavesdrop. When he was done ordering I struck up a conversation and we ended up eating together. This is really just a long windup to recount the best advice I remember my dad giving me "Just go ahead and talk to them you'll probably never see them again anyway".
Well the funny thing is you often see those people again. The gentleman I had lunch with in Austin the day before (or 2 they're all blurring together) drove by as I was setting up camp tonite. He'd recognized me and stopped to say hello.
What I really like about solo cycling is it teaches me patience. Most of the time you can blame your delays on others. Well I can wish myself to SLC all I want but till I put foot to pedal I'm not getting any closer. The other thing that's nice is you have nothing to do but think, pedal and think. Some thing small will set of a cascade of memories, the smell of suntan lotion took me back to the trip to Mt. Whitney a couple of years ago. The sun goes behind a cloud and suddenly it reminds me of Friday nights in high school spent standing in grocery store parking lots. I think about friends I've had, mistakes I've made, things that should have been said. Figure out how to make Futurama funny... it involves killing off most of the current characters and replacing them with some kids and a space dog they'll paint some psychedelic stuff on the space ship re-christen it the Magic Mystery Ship. They'll fly around with no purpose other than to solve mysteries that really just climax with the bad guys being cornered and un-masked in front of the local law enforcement.
This should have signaled the end of the reflective part of the email.
Let me just say that Austin was under whelming but I'm in love with Eureka. The passes and valleys surrounding it are wonderful. The down town was compact and just looked like the kind of place I'd like to live (it would be a crappy place to be a kid, I thought Reno had nothing to do). Maybe I'll get a summer home there. The only problem would be getting bandwidth I'd have a better chance of getting a snow-cone in hell than getting anything faster than a 56k modem out here.
Got a shower at the RV park it'd been almost 200 miles and I was ready. 3 dollars has rarely been as well spent. The people who ran the R.V. park were super cool I spent about 30 min talking to them.
I got a slow start but eventually I cleared Pinto Pass, it was needless to say all down hill from there.
andrew
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