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@pottsthoughts
Santa Barbara! My old stomping grounds! It is even more beautiful than I remembered and MUCH more beautiful than this crappy camera phone was able to capture. I spent 10 lovely days here with my generous hosts Kimberly and James. Rode my bike a lot and just lounged, Santa Barbara style.
Fast forward into the future...
Well, I got this blog about 95% complete for 75% of the trip. I suppose that is O.K.
Time and space are a funny thing on the internet. Right now I'm going to post a bunch of photos from the rest of my trip this summer, but I'm going to be doing that 3 months into the future, after our wedding celebration, and from my bedroom in Austin TX. But it doesn't even matter. This record will exist out there for people to find at any time in the future, or at least until Tumblr goes away. But even then, I suppose there might be a way to print all of the pages, although the effect won't be the same exactly.
Anyway, it was suggested that I might keep this blog primarily for my own memories and I feel a little guilty to disappoint my "future self" trying to figure out how this journey ended.
I managed to find back roads all the way down the mountain. Even passed by this White Lotus retreat's back yard. Oh the places that bikes may go...
A five dollar bill I found just lying along the road. Second piece of good luck for the day!
View on Stagecoach Road
Mattie's Tavern along Stagecoach Road. Unfortunately it wasn't open, but, the ride along the road was still phenomenal!
Stagecoach Road
At 6am I packed up camp and set out from Lake Cachuma. Tired, nervous and downright fearful, I was not looking forward to the 5 miles I had to ride on Hwy 154. Just the day before I was pleasantly rolling out of Santa Ynez when the shoulder completely disappeared on Hwy 154 and I found myself hanging out like a target, fighting to maintain speed on a road I really should not have been on. It was a scary, excruciating 4 miles til I reached the campground. So, that morning,as I was contemplating calling a taxi, I rode by two guys with a truck. I flagged them down and begged them to take me up the road as far as they were going. They were handyman contractors for the parks and kindly threw my bike in the back and ended up taking me all the way to Stagecoach road! Perfect! 154 successfully avoided. Matti says that no bike tour is complete without hitchhiking anyway!
Lake Cachuma at sunset. (Not pictured: extremely loud Jesus Camp)
Dinner at the Flying Flags. RV parks have a culture all to their own.
The Santa Rosa road lead me up and right into the little town of Buellton. Unfortunately there aren't many parks with camping in the area that weren't 20 miles up a hill off course, so i stayed at Flying Flags RV resort. My campsite looked like this. But, I met a chatty old man from Texas who was one of the camp hosts. He was interesting and friendly and helped me drink a bottle of wine I had purchased from the wine tasting up the road.
Passed by a ranch for sale along the Santa Rosa and then proceeded to try and figure out how one might buy such a ranch and turn it into an amazing Eco village and organic farm. An amazing co-op with small hand built strawbale houses for each family connected by a shared patio and garden. Grapes in the field to sell to the neighboring wineries, flowers to sell at market, veggies galore! A yearly festival, an artists studio, El Cosmico meets the fancy Santa Barbara hills!
One of my favorite stretches of road on this trip is the Santa Rosa Road from Lompoc to Buelleton. it winds throughout this remote and beautiful valley that follows the Santa Ynez river. No one was around, the pavement was smooth and the views were spectacular. Pepper trees lined the road and reminded me so much of the one in the front yard of my childhood home. I had to stop and listen to the buzz of the bees swarming the delicate flowers hanging off the limbs. I loved to stand in the center of the pepper tree as a child and be surrounded by all of these little working girls. Sometimes they would land on me, but they would never sting. Too content with the abundance of nectar I suppose.
Picking up where I left off
I'm sitting in a cute coffee shop in Santa Barbara which is sort of a redundant statement since everything is cute in Santa Barbara. I've been sucked into the picturesque atmosphere here and have been pleasantly floating along for the past week. Today I hope to get this blog updated at least a little bit while sitting in this cafe. There are three things I like about this place named Crush Cakes: 1. Although is is right around the corner from my old hood, it is a totally new place that I have never been to. This may seem trivial, but, in Santa Barbara, things do not seem to change much at all, ever. It is a nice change. 2. They serve really good cupcakes and really good coffee. One cannot ask for much more. 3. They have a really good selection of jams playing on the radio. I had not realized how music starved I was until I listened to the Feist album in Annie's car like 15 times. A sore mistake since I have been singing nothing but those 15 songs in my head since I left Aromas. Overdose. But now, I've got these jams! They are slowly trickling into my brain and diluting all the Feist. Thank goodness! I am starting to feel the beginning of the end of this epic vacation. Last night I was up looking at siding and roofing details til midnight. I'm filled with both an excitement and a nervousness about returning to Austin and the projects and life. Mostly I feel blessed, overwhelmingly blessed at being given this time.
Couples make out watch the sunset spot at the Kirk Creek Campground. Bitter sweet! Makes me miss my Matti Boo.
Beautiful little creek to freshen up in at Big Sur Kirk Creek Campground
I ended up driving the Big Sur section of the trip. A good idea in the end. The road is a real shit show of tourists and the shoulder is an afterthought.
Besides, it still counts since I got to rent a Prius! Nice , quiet and inexpensive! Got a company rate and only had to put a tiny bit of gas in it. Also, I followed the advice of the CHP officer and parked up the road for the night. Then, put the bike back together and rode into the campground to get a hike bike spot. Totally legit, I swear!