Well, I woke up at about 6am, to the noise of the other campers awakening. I staggered out of the tent, found the coffee and hot chocolate mix, and the oatmeal and muffins. In 15 minutes I was feeling much better! The coffee apparently was really bad all week, but my theory that if you put enough hot chocolate powder into something, it'll *always* taste good proved true...it was *strong* coffee though! Well, according to my stomach it was. Lise and I struggled w/ getting all the air out of the tent, which was on the infield (and therefore had little hard rocks digging into our hands while trying to roll the tent! ouch! We managed to get the tent back into it's bag (a minor miracle), and I slowly got all my stuff together. Thankfully, no saddle soreness! and the 6 ibuprofin I'd taken the night before had let me sleep. So I took 6 more, just in case my legs decided to try and hurt (btw, 1 ibuprfin = 200 mg). It was 8:30 before I rolled out of there. This was a relatively short 75 mile day (I think...my rider map's at home), going from Santa Cruz to Pinnacles, a very high remote place). The morning was very pretty and nice (cold though!) actually, and I made it all the way past SAG 1 before it started clouding up -- that was by the Monterey Bay Academy, above Manresa State beach and a few miles inland. SAG 1 was about 1.5 miles after a long climb, which ended in a rather steep climb which wound around a tallish hill. Just on the entrance to the hill, however, I looked up and saw a hawk circling around the hill -- I was so amazed by the beauty all around (by this time, we've got a nice valley spreading off to the left, clear sky, clean air, and a very large, very beautiful bird soaring overhead) I just sailed...or flew...up that hill. After SAG 1, we turned inland along Hwy 129, and found a long flat stretch with a really nasty headwind. SAG 2 was before Aromas, then we eventually made it into Hollister for lunch at a local Presbyterian Church. This little town had the most moving turnout: we passed an elementary school which had red ribbons all along the recess yard fence, and the kids were lined up against the fence, pressing into it, and waving and yelling at us, while the adults applauded as well. It really does bring tears to the eye (more eyes than just mine!) to see something like that, especially from the children we're trying to keep from ever having to deal with the fear of AIDS. The innocents should be able to stay as innocent as they can. After lunch, we turned onto Hwy 25, and it started to rain, just as I got my first (and as it proved, *only*) flat of the ride. A broken beer bottle as far as I could tell (brown heavy glass). At this point, I found out that you can't patch a tire in rain...if it gets wet, the glue ain't drying. 3 patches later the air still bubbled up the patches. Now, all this time riders have been asking if I'm okay, if I have everything I need, and I've been saying yes I'm fine because up to that point, I was. Well, the next person stopped and gave me a glueless press-on patch, which still had to be kept dry (I'm soaking wet at this point, and cold!), so when the *next* pair of riders asks if I have everything I answer "well...I should.." and they stop. One tells me that it's really no good to be trying to patch a tube in the rain, so he pulls out *his* spare tube and even puts it on the rim and inflates it. As he hands it back to me he says "this'll get you where you want to go", and the first thought in my head is "LA!". Somehow, I knew that I wouldn't get another flat, at least not on that tire! I was up and rolling less than 5 minutes after they stopped. I made it into SAG 4 (Tres Pinos) with three mountain bikers, very friendly folks, and it took my mind off the rain and (occasional) hail to chat with them. There was a slight break in the weather by SAG 5 (Willow Creek Cattle Corral), but we were still oh-so-cold. So, we only stop briefly and push on the last 14 miles to camp, turning off Hwy 25 onto Hwy 146, Pinnacles Hwy, being careful to walk our bikes over the cattle guards (1 big, 2 small). I hooked up with a couple women who were just blazing down the hill before the final incline into camp and we pushed hard (and warmed up) the whole way. We made it! I knew Lise would have been there for a while already, so I just went to the tent site, dropped my bike stuff (helmet, gloves, bag, etc.) and got my gear, got out my towel and some dry and warm clothes and headed off to the showers! Good thing, too, because I was the second-to-last person they let in; for about 1.5 hours the catering company ran out of water. The resevoir they were drawing off of had gone dry (with all that rain, too! Hmmmph), and they had to go find more, which took about an hour. Lucky me! So, I squelched back through the mud (this was an actual campsite) to the tent, patched the flat now that I could keep the tube dry, found Lise and a poncho, and went to get food. Oh...lunch had been salami sandwiches, and the catering people suddenly realized that "non-vegetarian" doesn't necessarily mean that people eat red meat. *BUT*, the catering people *really* did a *fantastic* job considering what we were asking them to do! I don't remember what dinner was, it was just food and food has rarely ever tasted so good as it did on this trip. I met three people (Chris, Justine, and Larry) standing under one of the tents behind the coffee tureens, and we dashed off during a semi-dry spell to get my cards (I'd brought 2 decks) and we played gin in Justine's tent for about an hour before heading off to sleep. Rain or not, Wet or not, I was tired! And I've camped enough to know the dangers of the sides of tent walls in wet/cold weather. Our tent-neighbors in one of the directions were not so happy, though, and spend about an hour (until 11 pm!) bitching about the weather and planned to get hotels for the rest of the trip. Well, now, I can understand wanting the hotel but the talking went on forever. Lise and I would have laughed if we hadn't been so tired...
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