Saturday, January 3, 2009

I'm Back...some snaps...



Well, I'm back. Just got off the Amtrak bus a few hours ago, downloaded my photos and picked a few that jumped out right away. We're pretty beat. Today was a long day of Amtrak travel that seems to be almost as tiring as bicycling (and sometimes not as much fun).




Anyway, the trip was a blast. We rode some beautiful roads and I learned a few lessons about planning and humanity as a whole.



At one point we were tired, hungry and still had to go over a pretty good climb and it was getting dark. We were in Lompoc on New Years day. No buses were running and there are no taxis in Lompoc. We had booked a room in Santa Maria which was still a good 15 hilly miles away. Not knowing what to do we just stopped to eat at a diner. Somehow it worked out that the manager of the restaurant called her son who had a pickup truck and he drove us over the pass. I'll never lump pick-up drivers again.



We had good weather for almost the whole trip though we had some foggy mornings and got a little sprinkled on in SLO (but hey, we got test out our CampMor rain capes!).



Overall, it was an amazing trip and we really wanted to keep going, but it's not yet quite THAT time, but it's close.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great shots - just stunning. Makes me want to get back over to the states for another tour. I was there for 10 month in 2005 on my Thorn Raven and loved it.
Have just come back from 5 weeks in Israel and had a blast - a stunning place but alas the news is not now so good.

do have a peep on flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hungrycyclist/sets/72157609207197979/

better than the guns and bombs on the news

happy new year

Ian Watkins said...

Beautiful pictures Russ.

twodeadpoets said...

Nice photos Russ. My wife loved them too.

I would love to see a Google Map/Earth representation of your route(s) if you ever get around to do something like that. Am possibly planing a trip from Victoria down the coast to SF this summer and would love to mix and match any of your "best of" routes in the California section of my plans.

Thanks and cheers!
tdp

jhaygood said...

I second that - great photos, and a map of your route would be great. This site works pretty great (and you can display elevations!)

http://www.mapmyride.com/