Day Sixteen

Mileage: 62.9 miles
Total: 904.1 miles

I am actually having a hard time remembering how many days I've been biking, which is making starting each blog post a bit challenging. I think losing track of time and days is one of the best parts of travelling, when your only concerns are getting from point A to point B (or at least that is the case with bike touring).

My half-rest day in Santa Barbara was fantastic. Kelly treated me to sushi at Arigato, which was a delicious way to end our week of touring. It was great to have another Santa Barbara people reunion, in SB as opposed to last weekends reunion in San Francisco. After dinner the SB crew headed down to Dargans to hang out. Thanks to everyone who came! Since I was pedaling today I headed back to Jayna's (where we were staying) reasonably early and went to bed, where perhaps not so surprisingly there was a small party going on. When I had almost fallen asleep there was a knock at the bedroom door, Kelly was telling me to wake up because a guy at the party had been biking with Hermann the last week. Turns out Jayna's house is the hiker/biker site of the Santa Barbara Mesa. I got up and talked for a bit with Chris who has been biking since Vancouver, BC. Its definitely a small world and we discussed all the people we had both met along the way. It was also nice to hear of Hermann's progress along the coast. We pacific coast bike tourers are a nomadic people that are slowly and somewhat in unison progressing down the coast.

Now to the riding today. This morning Kelly handed off the elephant handlebar mascot to Adele and we started pedaling south. Continuing our food tour we started with breakfast at East Beach Grill, followed by a lunch stop 25 miles later at Habit Burger in Ventura. The riding today was fast and pleasant, aided by a pretty major tailwind. Thanks wind! We did enjoy a nice stop at a Navy display in Port Hueneme, what do you think is faster: the missle or our bikes? We rolled into camp by 3:30 giving us plenty of time to relax. And plenty of time to deal with the first (or second depending on who's counting) explosion of the trip. Fortunately, the explosion consisted of chocolate. It turns out the rodents in Big Sur must have gnawed a hole in the food stuff sack and a chocolate bar, and today with the hot weather and a full resupplied food bag, the conditions were perfect for explosive chocolate. Although, the mess was quite significant, its hard to be upset when cleaning involves licking off chocolate.

The day ended on a high note as Jill brought us dinner of homemade lasagna with lots of fresh veggies. Followed by a visit with more snacks and treats from Dan and Julia. More southern california hospitality!

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