And now for the rest of the story...

OKay, you can say it. I'm terrible at updating my blog. I have all sorts of fun stories to tell, but first, I suppose I owe you the rest of the story from 4 Days to LA.

Day 2:
We woke up on day two and broke down camp as quietly as possible. We'd noticed that there was a house just over the side of the cliff from where we slept, so it was all whispers and hand gestures while we packed up. We walked our bikes down a lot of the fire road because of the shape it was in, deep ruts and loose gravel, and decided to try finding a short cut back to the 101 down a random road we could see from the vantage of our campsite. It worked out and we headed south.

I discovered that I was pretty stiff from the previous day's milage. No joke, it took me fifteen miles just to warm up. I've never experienced that before. I was completely out of water so we looked for a town. The first one we found was San Ardo.



San Ardo was kind of adorable, but a bit run down. We went to the only convenient store in town and I got some fruit and some juice. We started to refill our water bottles at the spigot on the side of the building, and I noticed the mold in my bottle - I'd been drinking from a moldy bottle all the previous day and who know how many weeks before. Yum!



I went across the street to San Ardo Café (the only restaurant in town) to use the bathroom and clean my bottle. I ordered a breakfast burrito and started cleaning the bottle with a napkin on the end of a butter-knife. The lady who took my order (and made the burrito) noticed what I was doing and offered to clean it with dish soap and a brush. With much gratitude, I agreed. She filled the bottle for me with ice-water and gave me my burrito. I told her muchas gracias to which she responded with de nada, and I left.



We stopped for a nice long break in San Miguel and Paso Robles. The terrain was rolling and the sun was hot at times, but we continued on until we hit the grade down to San Luis Obispo. We had a long stretch going directly into the wind as we made our way back to the 101 from a pleasant side road we'd been on, and I was exhausted. Leo thought it was a good idea to check his brakes before beginning the descent which gave me plenty of time to rest and stretch (and eat cookies).



We got in the bike lane on the 101 heading down into SLO. It was, in a word, scary. I remember, at one point, glancing down at the speedometer and seeing that I was doing 36 mph, then a gust of wind hit hit me so hard that the next moment I was doing 21 mph. Yeah, I think that about covers it.

We made it down in one piece and rode to our friend's house, the Establishment. The Establishment is a 19-room, former hotel turned housing co-op. If you're not familiar with the concept, just imagine 19 people and one kitchen. It worked amazingly well, which was probably a result of most of the people we met that live there being amazing.



We hung out, went to the grocery store, drank some beer, ate some food, made some friends, and went to bed. Our friend Brant put us up in his room. He gave me his bed and he slept on the couch (Leo refused to sleep on anything except the floor).

Another day passed - 85 more miles closer to LA and an unexpected bed in which to sleep - this is the good life.