vs. Good

Hi,
Still in Chicago, just signed the lease on an apartment - yay! But, back to the trip...

That night, after the Eel River fiasco we pulled into a little town called Garberville with one thing on my mind - finding a place where we could watch the first presidential debate. I immediately started calling the motels in town while KC and Nina were distracted by the all organic fast food stand. Suddenly KC's face became extremely animated and started pointing over my shoulder. We all turned to see a man on a bike pumping up the hill. He had a mountain bike and a trailer...check that, EMPTY trailer. "Alex!" we all screamed and jumped up and down. Actually, I think KC started with "Jeremy" then switched over to "Alex!".
It was a joyous reunion and Alex filled us in on his previous 36 hours. Essentially he decided that he wanted to bike to San Francisco (plus it seemed easier than renting a one way car out of Eureka) and he figured that without hauling any gear he could stay in hotels and make it in half the time. So, we all got organic tacos, some local beer and headed out to watch the debates.
We entered Mendocino County and were met with fog and the smell of Eucalyptus, both which hung in the air, hit you in the face, and clung to your skin. The roads along the coast were made for convertible sports cars (except for the particles of fog smacking you in the face). Crazy curves, crazy hills, steep cliffs hanging on the right met by the crashing surf.
We stopped for lunch in Fort Bragg and I had the best omelet of my life. After the ethereal experience that was lunch, KC, Nina and I sat down to figure out where we were going to stay that night. 35 minutes later with no resolve, a woman that Nina had talked to earlier walked by and said, "or you can stay at my place. I live in the next town over and you are welcome to sleep on my couch and use my shower." She made the decision really easy. We met Anne later that night at her house. She lives in the town of Mendocino which is a block for block replica of a New England seaside town with Victorian houses every 7 feet. Anne treated us better than a bed and breakfast -we sat around her fireplace drinking beers at night, took hot showers, we each got a couch and blankets to sleep with, and she made us an unbelievable German apple pancake turnover thing along with eggs for breakfast. However, her amazing hospitality was slightly outshadowed by her fascinating life. Anne grew up in Philadelphia but moved out to San Francisco to go to art school around 18. There she got into the early beginnings of the organic farming movement and learned the freedom that came with hitchhiking up the coast. She left San Fran to work on a sheep farm in Montana, spent time in Hawaii and Chicago and at 28 found herself back in California dated a guy for 3 weeks and decided to get married because as Anne put it, "I hadn't done that before." She now has three interesting kids aged 20, 16 and 14 with the 20 year old at Berkeley but spending the semester in Barcelona and her 16 year old is spending the year in France. Apparently international trips are big in the school district because some of the other school sponsored trips were hiking in Peru, surfing in Fiji, and going to Japan. My jaw was on the ground as I thought back to my big excursion in high school which was going to an authentic Mexican restaurant in...Pittsburgh...30 minutes away from my high school. In the past few years Anne got into biking and did numerous bike trips in Ireland which is where her compassion for us ragamuffins came from. The next morning we said our goodbyes and thanked her for the best night and the most kindness that anyone showed us on our trip. I should also mention that we left Alex in Fort Bragg at the brewery there (mmm Red Seal Ale....) talking to a cute bicycling woman from Georgia and he was going to shop around at the outdoors store and possibly buy camping equipment to replace his stolen gear.

We met up with Alex again and the next few days was more of the same terrain. We rode through one little town and as I biked through a man ran out of a store yelling at me. I stopped and turned around and he ran up to me thrusting a bag of taffy into my hands. He said, "I try to give all cyclists a bag of taffy for energy when they bike by." He biked the West coast a few years ago, hence his affinity for cyclists.

So, in summary we have some people for the good column - Anne in Mendocino, the free taffy guy and ...Poland. Don't forget about Poland.

I hope everyone is doing well.
cheers,
Leigh

Evil

Hi,
It's Thursday October 14th and I'm in Chicago, IL. Yes, I am done with the trip. However, I'm about a week behind in emailable stories, so there might be a few more emails coming.
Picking up from where I left off in the last email...
We left Arcata and headed south. Unfortunately for Alex, whenever he has a rest day, his next day on the bike is extremely painful as he gets shooting pains in his legs. Nina and KC went on ahead and I suggested to Alex that we eat at a Thai restaurant to take his mind off the pain. He agreed eagerly and we stopped for an hour in Eureka. Feeling rejuvenated after a great meal, we walked out of the restaurant. I turned the corner, looked at our bikes and thought to myself, "something is wrong." I then pinpointed it when I stared at Alex's bob trailer (Alex has all of his stuff in a little trailer that he drags behind his bike instead of panniers/saddle bags which I use). Inside his trailer was his sleeping bag and running shoes. Gone was his backpack. I quickly looked at my bike and exhaled in relief as all of the important things were there. Then I waited for Alex to come around the corner. He did and I just stared at him, too devastated to actually break the news. He looked past me and quickly realized....that all of his stuff....was stolen. You see, we locked our bikes, however his backpack could be lifted out of the trailer without much struggle. The damage:
Tent. Gone
Sleeping pad. Gone
Cool backpack. Gone
All clothes besides those he was wearing. Gone
All toiletries. Gone
Pots, bowl, silverware. Gone
Towel, flashlight, book. Gone, Gone, Gone
Essentially everything that makes up his life on the road was gone. Still, typical of Alex, he was responding with a "that's ok, it sucks, but it's replaceable" attitude. Until he realized something was gone that couldn't be bought at REI - his disc for his digital camera with his pictures from the first half of the trip. That's when he asked if I minded if he rode around the block by himself for a moment. I said, "of course not, I'll call the girls and tell them what happened and then meet you at that brewpub we passed a few blocks back."
He joined me at the brewpub after a bit and we talked through his options:
1. go back 12 miles to Arcata and buy new gear to continue the trip with us to San Fran
2. fly home
3. rent a car and drive back to Chicago stopping in Moab to mountain bike and hike
After 10 minutes Alex decided to drive to Chicago and I realized then that I better leave in order to meet up with the girls by that evening. We quickly said goodbye and went in opposite directions. The whole ordeal took 30 minutes and then Alex was gone from the trip.

I met up with Nina and KC that night and they both had that "lack of closure" feeling that comes when someone you spend 24-7 with for 1 month suddenly leaves without saying goodbye. But the next morning we woke up and continued to head south.

Over the weeks of the trip, I developed the habit of biking last in our group because I liked it...well that... and the fact that I'm slower than everyone else...by a lot. I also tend to stop a lot and get distracted by things. We determine at the start of the day where we'll meet for lunch in the likely case that we all don't bike together. That day, I was kind of surprised when I got to the little hillside gas station first, but KC and Nina soon joined me. The first thing Nina said was, "KC and I went swimming in the Eel river!" (They asked me that morning if I wanted to go swimming and I said that I wasn't interested - mostly because the "eel river" doesn't sound very appetizing and also because the river was about as deep as my knees. But, before I could respond, a guy with a sunken mouth, stringy shoulder length hair and shifty eyes said, "well, if I were you I'd go rinse off really quick because there is bacteria in the river that could kill you. It kills dogs and sends people to the hospital with seizures." Nina kind of half laughed at the man but shuffled her feet nervously. I then had to admit that I saw a poster inside the gas station that had something on this topic. Nina ran inside where she read "Do NOT go swimming in the Eel river, Keep all dogs and children away from river. There is an ancient blue-green algae that produces Nuerotoxins that are extremely harmful." Both KC and Nina instantly sprinted outside and began to furiously scrub themselves with water from the spigot on the side of the trailer like gas station. The guy behind the counter assured me that if they were going to die, they would would have died already - all of the dogs died within 15 minutes of entering the water. This soothed the pair a little bit after their pseudo cleansing and I encouraged them to call the 1-800 neurotoxin hotline that was on the flyer to ease their minds even more. They finally relaxed once they hung up the phone and confirmed with each other that they did not a. swim through huge pools of algae (only small pools), b. drink large quantities of water, c. or licked their skin once they left the river (that is what did the dogs in).
In summary, in the "evil" column we now have thieves in Eureka and blue-green algae Nero toxins.

I hope everyone is doing well.
cheers,
Leigh

You know you're in California when...

Hello,
It's Sunday October 3rd and I'm in Mendocino, California.

We rolled into Arcata, California, a quaint little college town deep in the heart of Humboldt County, a few days ago. Knowing that we were going to take the next day off (our first rest day in a LONG time) I went immediately to the bike shop to give my bike some tlc. The owner greeted me with "Welcome to the dred lock capital of North America." And sure enough, not only were there plenty of white rasta hippie kids everywhere around town, but there were VW vans and tie dye as far as the eye could see. For you see, Arcata is not just any college town, it's a college town in the middle of the largest producing county of marijuana in the United States. The bike shop owner, who has been there since '72, informed me that "unfortunately there are a lot of panhandlers in the town square who came here to find mecca, but at least it makes for a very liberal, mellow constituency." At 4:20, KC and Nina went to inspect the local flora and I went in search for a little holistic healing myself. My shoulder/neck ache escalated to shooting pain a few days prior, so I figured that a town like Arcata had to have a massage place. In fact there were 17 massage therapists, not including a massage therapy school - all in a town of 15,000 people. The place I went to looked like a normal dentist office from the lobby, but instead of the dentists and orthodontists' names on the board, there were 7 massage therapists, 2 acupuncturists and a chiropractor. After he worked the knot out of my neck and showed me some exercises to prevent it from happening again, I went to the local noodle shop. While eating a fantastic Indonesian noodle dish, in walked a Dad's group. That being, 4 Fathers in their mid-30's each toting a toddler. The group then sat down to eat, with the dads eating green curry and the 1.5 year olds eating udon noodles with thai peanut sauce (all organic, of course). Just like in Hudson, Ohio.

That night, Alex and I went into the local saloon for a beer. An establishment qualifies as a "saloon" if a. the front doors swing in and out, b. the bartender is older than death, c. there are dead animals hanging all over the walls, d. there are trucker hats with various sayings hanging from the ceiling (made popular from actual truckers instead of Ashton Kutcher) e. the jukebox is filled with Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard and all of this is done NOT in the name of kitsch. The bartender took a half hour to scan our id's to make sure that we were over 21 (htis is funnier when you realize that Alex is completely bald) and 20 minutes to finally hear what we wanted to drink. Two guys walked in to the previously empty bar and the following conversation took place:
New guy: "Is Dana around?"
Bartender: "Who?"
NG "Dana"
B "Who?"
NG "Dana"
B "I don't know a Dana"
NG "Brown hair, about 5'7""
B "What's her name again?"
NG "Dana"
B "What?"
NG "Dana"
Bartender, looking around to us, the two guys and the rest of the empty bar and said, "Well, evidently, she's not here."
The two guys went to play pool and after a time came over to me and the one asked, "ma'am, would you mind doing me a favor and kick my friend's ass?" This was the icebreaker we were looking for and soon we learned that their names were Mingo and Mick and they just got released from prison. Since this was definitely cause for celebration, they bought us some pabst blue ribbons and we continued to talk to them although I was slightly more guarded than before. However, Alex just kept going at his normal level and his commets about sushi were met with blank stares and his cerebral, urban jokes dropped flat and were returned with Mick and Mingo's favorites all regarding pirates...
Question "What rating did the Pirate give the movie?" Answer "Arrrrrrr"
Question "What beer did the pirate order?" Answer "PB Arrrrrr"
The bartender cut them off and kicked them out (apparently they had been celebrating for many hours (days?), and on their way out they shook our hands and said, "thank you for a nice evening ma'am" to me and "your name should be Ben" to Alex. I looked closely at Mingo and imagined him without the beard and the hat and there was a hint of George Clooney there. Alex agreed that with the help of the team from Queer Eye, those two could saunter down the red carpet - this of course would be the ex-con episode and comedy ensues when little Jai tries to infuse culture into the guys while not losing their pirate sense of humor.

Hope everyone is doing well.
cheers,
leigh