EAST OF BURNT RANCH, CA - The night before I'd squatted a spot at one of the most beautiful campgrounds I've come across. It was at the end of an old overgrown strech of the highway in a dense foggy rainforest overlooking the ocean. I'd ended up squatting because at the bottom of the overgrown road was a gate with a combination lock. Now the idea was that you would sign in (read pay) at the ranger station a few miles up the road and they'd give you the combination. That sounded like a horrible idea to me. I was sitting there reading the sign explaining this because it had gotten too dark to continue riding safely. Sure that any rangers would appreciate that bit of reasoning I pushed my bike around the end of the gate and away I went.
This becomes relavent to today's events when on the way out in the morningI find a fallen tree streched across the road and two rangers readying their chainsaws to remove it. My options at this point seemed to be: A) turn around and hide B) since the rangers have likely seen me, wait patiently for them to clear the road C) push my bike through the various thorned plants and attempt to navigate a path around the tree so I can start making some miles. Not wanting to wait around and possibly have a discussion I went with C. Had I known before hand about the waist high stinging nettles I probably would have chosen differently. The funny thing about nettles is, it takes a few seconds to realize that the pulsing-burning sensation coming from your leg is from that plant you brushed 5 feet back. Well you know me, instead of cutting my losses and turning back I gritted my teeth and pushed on pell-mell uttering obsenities under my breath--not that it mattered, the rangers had managed to get their chainsaws going no one could hear a thing. I made it the 1/2 mile to the highway before stopping to begin swearing.
As I mentioned in the previous volume of this narative I have a lot of miles to cover in a short time. Because of that today was a stressful but productive day. After my painful start this morning I put in another 30 miles on the cold fog shrouded rolling hills that are the 101. I was such mentally draining riding that I found myself mentally bargining away my right to complain about the heat in any future corespondence. So no matter how hot it gets (or was this afternoon) I'll not be complaining. It must have worked, as soon as I got onto CA-299, the fog lifter and the temperature soared. I didn't budget enough water for the higher temperature and the 30 miles of long winding climbing. I ended up bumbing a liter of a fire crew that was sitting on the side of the road waiting for the rest of their group. At the top of the second pass a couple stopped and gave me a cold bottle of water, I gave them a flag I'd found in the morning.
I was ready for a cold drink when I pulled into Willow Creek, the oasis I'd been riding toward for the better part of 6 hours. I don't know what they put in the water here but in the 15 minutes it took me to buy some fruit and a Gatorade I saw no less than 5 unbelievably georgous girls that were probably not old enough for me to even be looking at. It's a good thing I was in a hurry because I could have gotten into a lot of trouble in that town if I'd had any more time. You know that phrase "Don't get between a mamma and her cubs", well they didn't just mean mamma bears.
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