Isaac Wilde Bikes

  Day 70 Menlo Park - the Pacific Coast, 30 miles 0 days left.  This journey started longer ago than the 70 days recorded here. It started longer ago than even the six months of preparation. It began the way rivers do; tributaries of childhood memories joining together into a thick flowing cord that insists that I do not stay still. In many ways, that insistence is one of the core aspects of myself. It is more than just an urge to physically travel, more than an urge to simply traverse miles. I am compelled to keep moving as a person, to further my abilities, my mind, my connections.  Just as the journey did not begin 70 days ago, neither does it end on the 70th day. It is my goal to live my life as though it is a continuation of the adventures I have lived previously. I don’t perceive a hard cutoff between “on the road” and “home”. It is closer to a sliding grey scale that never truly reaches one end or the other.  Finishing the practical, physical aspects...

  I wonder why they call it the Bay Area?

  See journal for how I found this outdoor movie theater yesterday evening. It's Kansas all the way down.

  Dropped 5k feet today. Haven't been this close to sea level since Pennsylvania. Last peak of the trip.       Mike's state is always a good indicator of my own, and let me tell you, the poor guy is falling apart. The back tire is worn clean down, I've got a broken spoke, the shifter is busted, the breaks are so loose they hardly work, and the whole contraption creaks ominously.         As a kid, I once played a puzzle video game with my dad and sister. I distinctly remember my favorite moment, where the protagonist leaps onto a train as the station explodes behind her, the train barely escaping as everything crumbles behind it. I feel a bit like that haha; everything is falling to pieces and I'm only barely gasping over the finish line.

  Rising above the smoke on a steep, winding road. No welcome to California sign, so this picture of Lake Tahoe will have to do.

The smoke made it so the whole day looked like this. In Carson City, I can see the Sierra Nevadas half hidden by smoke. A guy I talked to said that he was just in the town I'm stopping at tomorrow on the shore of Lake Tahoe, and there isn't as much smoke there.   

 

 

  Middlegate was a ragtag bunch of rv trailers huddled around this quaint pub like penguins for warmth. I had finished riding by 1, and the pub was air conditioned, so I spent the rest of the afternoon inside. The wait staff liked me (because I ordered a lot of food haha) This is the Middlegate Monster; they give you a t-shirt for finishing it. Lol