give an update on the trip thus far let me briefly sum up the rest of my
train ride.
After the ex-patriot got off in Reno, I met a lovely woman named
Chantelle. For the last four hours we had a chit chat about this,that
and everything under the sun. The best part was when we both realized
that we have a mutual understanding that everything is awesome, even the
stuff that sucks. She's actually a folk singer, check her out on
myspace; I think her site is www.myspace.com/chantelletibbs. Hopefully
shell check out the blog and correct me if I'm wrong. She also had her
own clothing line of pretty cool stuff. You can check that out at
Upon getting off in Sacto, I found that in transit both my mirror and
cyclometer were broken, SHITTY. Anyway I quickly put my bike togther and
headed out. When I left a girl complimented my helmet. When I looked up
I noticed she was wearing a chicken on her head?!? I'll leave it at
that.
I wasn't able to get to Marc's graduation because the directions he gave
me were partly freeway. Luckily I found a trail that dropped me off
about 6 miles from his base. So I rode it all the way to the end...in
the wrong direction. When I got my directions right I rode for about 6
miles then came to a detour in the trail, made of sand, and I ride a
road bike. OOF! Finally I got to Marc's road; for all the CT natives out
there, imagine an even longer and shittier Berlin Tpke. So of course my
tire popped, leaving me to walk about 2 miles where I met this kid who
was all kinds of messed up. Imagine if a fraggles were real and were
having really hard teenage years, and bad dental work too.
The next day we left for tour and let me tell you, I have a firm grasp
of what someone means when they say "train wreck". I think we popped 5
tires total and only made it 20 miles. We ended up sleeping in the
parking lot of an ampithetre cuz I made a wrong turn and Marc and I got
seperated, though a nice cyclist named Bill gave him a ride with his
stuff. In the middle of the night water came shooting in the tent and I
thought it was raining but the sprinkler system was right next our tent,
blasting us with water.
The next day was smoother, although we did make a major stop to do some
serious bike repair. Shout outs go to Glen and Nick who run Van's bicyle
center in Yuba city. After hearing about our tour, they gave us some
free supplies and even fixed Marc's derailur(sp?) for free. We also met
a nice couple- the woman's name was Angie, I forget the dude-who took
all our excess stuff and will mail it home for us. Thanks Angie, you
rule! We rode for another few hours and had to sleep in the woods.
Today has been a signifigantly better ride, although the pace is
grueling as the temperature has been averaging 98 degrees since we left.
We also met unsavory character number 2. When riding there was a man
wearing khaki shorts, boat shoes and a polo, but he was wearing the polo
like a cape. Here are a few direct quotes we got when asking for
directions.
"Your're going the wrong way, believe me, I know kung fu."
"Look at this (points to scar on his arm) I had to kill him, guy pulled
a knife and so I said put it down, but I had to kill him, and now I'm
thirsty."
"Fuck booze and food, I eat people. You know which ones I like best?
Colored people, but not women, their blood tastes too much like iron."
Did I mention this conversation was bout 2 minutes long? Yeah that's a
lot to handle.
In other news Marc is wiped out from the heat but I think its becuase
he's not eating. Hopefully we'll get to Lassan Volcanic tomorrow.
-- The Jelly Bean Dream
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