66.1 in 5:34.....Nov. 25....After a couple of rest days, I wanted to get closer to LA, even though Santa Maria is home for another week. I made arrangements for Pam to come south on US 101 and pick me up after she got done making her famous pumpkin bread. Her trip on 101 would be a lot shorter than mine, on Rts 135, and 1, until I hooked up with 101.
The scenery today was very uneventful ( I don't want to say boring). I started out on Cali. Rt. 135 south, which is also Broadway Ave. in Santa Maria, which is the major non freeway north to south route in Santa Maria. It was stop and go with traffic and red lights for about eight miles through town, before 135 turned into a four lane, with nice shoulders and little traffic. Rt 1 joined us south of town and then veered off towards Vandenburg Air Force Base. I continued on 135, which twisted and turned through some decent mountains, but I only had to climb one serious climb of about 600ft over Harris Grade Rd, which was a short cut around the Air Force Base. Before I did my climb, I ran into bicyclists heading the other direction. They were (former?) Yale students, very young, and very unprepared for their announced trip of Santa Barbara to San Jose. They had never toured before, and planned on doing 300 miles through the Big Sur area in five days, with no hill training. They had bikes that they bought at a pawn shop, one of them with ten, very big gears. No climbing gears to speak of. They didn't seem real concerned or even knowledgeable about the task that lay ahead of them. I commended them on their initiative, but also asked them if they had a plan B. It turns out that a sister lived in San Jose and was going to pick them up if they didn't make it. Their plan B, which I really think was plan A, was to get to Santa Cruz ( about 250 miles), and get a ride. Like I said, I commended their thought process, but told them the trip wasn't a video game, and they had their work cut out for them. They just sort of giggled and smiled. I got on my way, pretty sure that they would abort way before Santa Cruz. Kids these days!
Rt1 and 135 ended with a 7% grade for two miles where I hit over 40 mph on the descent. I had been climbing gradually all day, in that sneaky little way that makes your legs feel heavy, but you can't really tell you're going uphill, until my one good climb. I was surprised to see that I climbed over 3000 ft for the day. The legs felt rested and good, so I made up for lack of scenery with some good old fashioned pedal pounding. I had stopped in a town called Lumpoc for a drink, and broke the clip on my right shoe, which was really old and ready to die, so I couldn't clip in with one pedal for most of the trip. Without many hills, it didn't seem to bother me that bad, but I really do like pulling up on the pedal stroke, not just bearing down on the pedal. Rt. 1/135 ended when it met up with US 101, which was the way Pam was coming to get me. 101 quickly spit me out on the Pacific Coast, and the rest of the ride was right along the ocean. It was strange because there was no development, just a few state parks with beach access, but there were railroad tracks between 101 and the ocean. The ocean was very calm, with a few oil rigs in the distance, and a couple of islands which may possibly have been Santa Rosa, and Santa Miguel Islands, but I'm not sure. Once again, the mountains to my east were the same as all that I have seen for quite a while, just totally browned off by drought. I saw on the news where this area has only had 4 inches of rain ALL YEAR! They pray for rain in church every Sunday, and have explored potential cloud seeding. There is rain forecast on Thanksgiving, so I actually hope it pours.
Excitement for the day included the Allied Moving Truck that drifted over onto the shoulder on 101 and just about took me out. I gave him a carefully chosen double dose of Thanksgiving birds as he drove off, but who knows if he was even awake to see them. I just hope he didn't do it intentionally. The other interesting thing was the discovery of about a dozen frozen turkeys across the lanes of Rt. 101. Only one looked as though the buzzards hadn't found it, but i didn't stop to check it out.
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