Eight Days a Week

I forgot to mention that I had my first flat not long after pulling into San Luis Obispo; rather than trying to change the tube out myself (it blew out at the very end of the day and as is usual at the end of the day, I was pretty tired) I took it to a bike shop someone recommended, Art's Cycle. They changed out the tube, lubed up my chain and cleaned a week's worth of grime off the frame in no time, for seven dollars. Beat doing it myself on the road.

I think overall the first week and a day have gone pretty well. My legs are sore at the end of the day lately, but not so sore that I can't get up and do it again the next day. When I left San Francisco I was thinking I needed to ride about 50 miles a day to make any progress, and after eight days I've ridden 393.7 miles, an average of 49.3 miles a day. Other than my flat tire yesterday, and that nasty hill outside of Big Sur, I haven't had any problems really, so things are good.

Some highlights from the last few days I might not have mentioned: the scrub jay that stole part of my sandwich while I was setting up my tent at Big Sur, and the ground squirrel that tried to steal my banana the very next day, at Limekiln. I had to give him a piece because he managed to bite into the very top of it. A rock as big as my head tumbling down a cliff and falling about 20 feet away from me on the opposite side of the road, between Limekiln and San Simeon. The pack of coyotes that woke me up at 2:30 in the morning, in San Simeon State Park - they were yapping and howling and running around for half and hour before they finally moved on. The girl who gave me a big red juicy tomato at some roadside produce stand yesterday, and the man selling cherries from the back of his pickup truck at a lonely four corners outside of Orcott. He was selling boxes of cherries for seven dollars but agreed to sell me a little bag for a dollar; the boxes were labelled "for Japan", but that apparently wasn't meant to be. I know mine never made it past his cherry stand.