La odisea

I'm in Venice, CA staying for a little while with friends. My ultimate destination is Monica's dad's sailboat in San Diego. She doesn't fly in until October 10, so I'm killing time and hanging out on the beach in LA until she gets there.

The entire trip has been filled with awesome, some highlights... drinking, cycling, eating baked goods, meeting lots of cool people, seeing lots of friends I normally only get to see once a year or so, and drinking. There's been a surprising (and awesome) amount of drinking on the trip.

I've gotten only one flat tire. Nothing else has broken. My bruise count is up in the hundreds by now, but otherwise my body has been pretty good to me. There haven't been any animal attacks, or crashes, or thieves/murderers/rapists. However, there have been many crazy people, including a former cult leader, and a guy whose claim to fame was that he gives "the all star massage".

I'd say the closest I got to a potential animal attack was the rattlesnake outside my tent the other night. That was a bit unnerving.

My favorite part of the trip was probably the Oregon coast. The other cyclists I've met and rode with were some of the coolest people: Emily from Arlington, WA, Jan and Ron from Vancouver, BC, Karla from Alaska, Daryl and Cliff from Mercer Island. I feel really lucky to have met such wonderful people. It's made the entire trip much more enjoyable and rewarding.

Sometimes when I sit and think about it I realize how crazy it sounds that I've traveled this far on my bicycle. But having done it, it doesn't seem crazy at all. It was actually really easy. I've only cried a handful of times, and I've only felt unsafe maybe once or twice. People in general have been so good and so kind to me. I hope I'm able to inspire people to cycle more or at least take better care of cyclists they see on the road.