Day 94, August 20th 2008, beginning in Santa Cruz, California

Paul and I went to grab some breakfast foods from Trader Joe's when we got up. We grabbed some cereal and pastries. When we got back, Mike had come back over with his friend Leif. Leif had biked the coast as well down from Oregon. Paul and I quickly ate out cereal as we were making plans to leave. Sean wanted to sell his bike now that the trip was over, and Mike had all the prepping utensils at his place. Paul was going to meet a friend from home who was spending a few days in California before heading off to Australia to study abroad. Leif and Mike biked over, and we planned on playing frisbee golf up a bit of a mountain, so we decided we'd drive. Mike's car was over at his house so we headed over there, while Paul headed downtown to meet up with his friend.

When we got to Mike's he offered me his bike pump to make sure my tires were nice and tight. Since I had just put on the new tire yesterday, I thought it was a good idea. As I pumped the tire to around 80 psi, the tire itself popped out of the rim a bit and the tube exploded. It sounded like a gunshot, and scared the crap out of me and Mike who was inside the house. He came rushing out and asked if I was okay. It was pretty funny actually. I was in no rush to put a new tube in because we wouldn't be riding for a few days. However, when I began looking at the rim, I noticed some cracking in it. It seems as though I uncovered a new problem by popping the tire. It looked like it would probably need replacing… great. Mike's landlords pulled into the driveway shortly after that and gave us the okay to store the bikes in their garage while we spent a few days in Fresno. At least that was good. I could maybe find a replacement rim in Fresno.

After my decision to delay my problem until later, Leif, Mike and I headed out to frisbee golf. The course is apparently really well known among frolfers nationwide. It was a lot of fun, but these seasoned vets were a lot better than I. It was a lot less forested than the Steamboat Springs course however, so much less time was dedicated to searching for the discs. Thank god.

When we were done we headed back to Mike's place. Sean was finishing up with the bike, and Paul called because his friend had left. We were going to head to the beach, so we drove over to meet Paul back at Sean's.

We made our way down to Booby Cove, a small section of beachfront near where the surfers ride. They call it booby cove because of the Blue Footed Booby that instinctively flocks there seasonally. Before you Google what a Blue Footed Booby is, let me save you the time and tell you its a bird. However, the naming of the area may have more to do with the UC Santa Cruz college nearby than the blue footed version.

When we got down there, we were happy to see some big "sets", what Californians call waves in succession. I guess it's easier to say. It was an amazingly beautiful spot that we had to climb down into. We played in the huge waves for a while like little children. It was a great time. We never did see any UCSC girls, but strangely enough David Hasselhoff made an appearance.

We hung out and dried off on the rocks before we headed back to Sean's. When we returned, Paul had to drive his stuff over to Mike's to be stored, while I hung out with Sean before we caught the bus into San Jose. Mike would be around on the weekend when we returned so we would see him again before he departed for Europe.

Paul called when he was ready, and I said goodbye to Sean. We planned on maybe meeting up again in L.A. since we were both heading that way after Fresno. I walked over to the bus station carrying a couple bags and a rim to replace. The bus would take us to San Jose where we were meeting our carpool guy to take us into Fresno. We grabbed some pizza and finished the milk we had bought that morning before getting on the bus. I forced the last few drops down so as not to waste and thought I might explode.

The bus was under an hour thanks to the Wildcat Sandra Bullock. We felt like we were in Speed 2, as we went over mountains and through valleys the bus never seemed to go under 100. That said, we were in San Jose early and had to wait for Henry to come pick us up. After not much waiting, Henry showed up. Nice, a Honda. Henry is a nice young Vietnamese guy who moved here in '94 with his parents and presently works as a dental hygienist.

We hit very little traffic the whole way as we were well past rush hour. It can get bad in California. After we took a halfway pit stop at Micky D's, we got back in the car to finish out the short remainder. When we close to Fresno, I asked Henry what kind of music he liked, as he had not put any on yet. Turns out he had a penchant for techno and was glad I asked, as he morphed the car into a rave club for the last 20 minutes of the ride. Not bad stuff, though.

We made it to my friend Marge's house with no problems. I hadn't seen her in 3 years, but we kept in touch over the phone. It was already getting late, and Marge had to work the next day, so we just hung out in her place for a bit catching up, and, you guessed it, watching olympics.

We were in good shape, we each had our couch to sleep on, while Marge went upstairs. Good old nostalgic Fresno. We didn't have much planned for the next day, but that was just fine.

Life was good.