|
Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 18:17:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Eric Zander
Subject: RoadKill Report 18May98
RoadKill Report 18May98
Hello everyone! And, A welcome to the newest
recipients of the RoadKill Report. Since this is the first "real"
report, I'll reiterate what I said before in brief:
* If you don't want to receive this trash, email me and I'll take
you off the list.
* If you know anyone who wants to get this report, tell them to
email me asking for more of this trash.
So, In brief....
I spent a week with Ida and Karl. Ida's in grad school and Karl
is in the Navy. Must suck to have to do things like work and study.
Glad I retired! Now I can live a life of leisure....
Seriously, Karl and Ida were wonderful hosts. Kiko, the cat, will
be missed (but my allergies won't miss her!)
I left Imperial Beach, the most southwesterly
point of the continental US last Tuesday (12May98). The weather
was beautiful, warm and sunny.
Boy was I a sucker.
I headed north towards San Diego and took
the ferry from Coronado to downtown as to Ida's suggestion. One
problem. I couldn't find my way out of downtown. My map didn't
have to roads needed. I ended up touring downtown SD for about
an hour... nice, buuuttt....
Finally got out of there and headed up the coast to La Jolla.
For those of you who have never been there, it's pornounced "La
Hoya".
Those stupid Californians can't even spell right....
From La Jolla I headed up the coast towards a state park just
north of Camp Pendleton. The weather deteriorated all day. Just
North of La Jolla there was a shower but a convienient underpass
provided me shelter. By the time I got to Camp Pendleton it was
POURING rain. I would have stopped but didn't want to deal with
wet marines. I hear they smell like wet dogs but, that would still
smell better than my bike shoes right now.
Since everything I have is double bagged, everything except me
and Jezebel was dry. Jezebel and I were swimming. About two hours
later I arrived at the campground. The rain let up but didn't
stop. I set up camp and went to sleep, shivering. Not from the
cold inside my tent, from the cold of being in the cold rain for
three hours or so....
Wed. Morning I awoke to.... more rain.
It cleared up a bit around 8 so I packed up my wet tent and everything
else and hit the road figuring I couldn't get any wetter. The
people at the campground were cool, they let me stay for free
b/c I came so late and left so early.
My goal for Wed. was to make it to Lake Perris State Park, NE
of Camp Pendleton. As I rode I saw rain ahead of me and rain behind
me quite often but, all day all I had was a few sprinkles. People
all along the way told me about the heavy showers that had "just
passed through". I guess the rain gods were being nice to
me. I'll have to burn some joss for them...
The first half of the day Wed. was all uphill. This is a theme
you will see through the next few days. hills and mountains. So,
I rode mostly uphill to an elevation of like 3,000 ft. My geography
teacher was right, it is colder on top of mountains. Then, after
fighting this uphill battle all morning, I was looking forward
to an equivalent downhill. WRONG. The downhill was very short
and very very steep. I dropped about 2000 feet over four miles
of switchback roads. got some nice pictures though...
Now I was in Lake Elsinore. A great place in the middle of nowhere.
From Lake Elsinore it was rolling hills out to Lake Perris. By
the time I reached Lake Perris my right knee was KILLING me. it
was painful to ride at all. Butthead that I am, I forgot that
I have lots of drugs with me. Motrin, Tylenol, aspirin and bunches
of antihistimines. So I did a study in pain the last few miles.
Got into Lake Perris and the rangers were REAL nice. Got a camp
site right by the showers - they were warm, I was almost dry and
it wasn't as cold as the night before.
Next morning I took two motrin and had no pain all day! Gee, figure
that. Headed from Lake Perris up to San Bernardino. The morning
was rolling hills, nothing too bad. Then I got onto route 18 north.
This mountain was very steep. I spent two or three hours climbing
up to an elevation of 4,760 feet. There's even a town up there,
on top of the mountain. It's called Crestline. It looked like
Philadelphia in January - snow on the side of the roads! The rest
of the day, about 15 or 20 miles was mostly downhill into the
park. Even though I was getting closer to the desert (yes John,
I know now which is desert and which is dessert) b/c I was in
the rain shadow of the mountains, there were lots of beautiful
trees.
Arrived in Silverwood Lake State Park and set up camp. Again,
the rangers were wonderful and helpful. State parks in Ca. are
only $3/night for a hiker/biker. Gotta love it.
I wanted to rest a day b/c my knees were sore - the gearing on
Jezebel isn't really for touring and those hills with the weight
on my bike puts a lot of stress on my knees. Of course, thanks
to Mr. Stytler and his lack of driving skills I have that oh-so-special
pain in my right knee.... The old coot is probably dead by now.
He was 83 in '93.
So, anyway, I wanted to rest a day but the park is in the middle
of nowhere so I decided to push on to Mojave. The morning saw
another long, steep mountain climb. Nothing too bad, especially
after the climb up into Crestline. But, as they say, payback's
a bitch and now it was payback time for me. I had a wicked tailwind
and a generally downhill ride all the way into mojave. I was cruising
at 30mph for long distances! I rode 98.72 miles this day and averaged
15.49mph - that includes the climb in the am.!
On the way to Mojave I passed through Palmdale (on route 138)
which is kind of a suburb of LA. It's really odd to see desert
with joshua trees and cactus and stuff and then suddenly WHAM!
green suburbia. Must be wreaking havoc on the ecology. Why would
anyone grow a lawn and trees when, if you forget to water them
for about a week, they die??
So, Jezebel and I stayed in the Sierra Trails R.V. Park. I make
special mention of this place b/c if you are ever in Mojave, you
should stop in and say hi to Cecil, Betsy and their sons, Trevor
and Wynn. They are to managers of the park and were very, very
nice. Really great people.
In the morning (Friday) as I was putting my bags on Jezebel the
hook on one of the bags broke. I went and asked Betsy if there
was anything she could do to help - presto! - within 5 minutes
I had lacing tape and a needle! Within the hour I had it all stitched
up. She even let me keep the tape and needle in case I have more
problems down the road.
I got going quite late, 11am was when I left mojave. From Mojave
I took route 14 to 178 west which took me straight to Lake Isabella.
Cecil told me there was NOTHING between Mojave and Lake Isabella.
He wasn't kidding. Good thing I had lots of Powerbars, Gatorade
and apples! Route 14 was wonderful - downhill and another serious
tailwind. I was averaging 20-30 the whole 30 miles. Then I hit
route 178. I think hit describes this well because of how steep
the mountain was. That coupled with the tailwind-turned-headwind
and I was hurting all the way into Isabella. Climbing the mountain
was the worst, 8 miles of steep uphill. The pass at the top is
at 5,250 feet. Cold and windy. I didn't stay long, only to get
a picture and eat a powerbar.
After finally fighting the headwind into Isabella my morale was
pretty low. After several days of mountains, winds, rain and cold,
I was asking myself why???
But, after a good dinner and a hot shower in a nat'l park campground
($14/night - what a ripoff!) I was feeling better.
Little did I know what the mountain gods had in store for me on
Sunday. Sunday morning after a breakfast of half a pound of cheese,
5 donuts, 1 carrot, 2 apples, a Powerbar, a quart of Gatorade,
and a quart of water I was ready to go! Breakfast of champions,
neh?
I was planning to take sunday off but after getting gouged by
Uncle Sam (I found out most nat'l parks are $14!!) I wanted to
get out of there. Also, the Billy-Bob factor of the Lake Isabella
region was bothering me. They even have a twang in their voice!
I think they drink Budweiser there.
So, I headed west on route 155 on my way to Porterville. Well
right from the start Route 155 was not very easy. It was a 13%
grade. Now, I have NEVER gotten off Jezebel before to walk her.
Until now. I zig-zag-ed up wherever possible but after a few miles
of this, it just got to be too much. I took frequent breaks and
rode wherever possible but for maybe a total of a mile I walked
her. I'm so ashamed. ;-)
Again, payback is a bitch (or is it revenge is sweet?) Once at
the top - around 6,000 feet - I had about 30 miles of beautiful
downhill riding.
Oh, forgot - at the summit of 155, there was lots of snow and
I was actually up in the clouds! The fog was as thick as pea soup.
(nice idiom, neh?) On the way down to Glennville (between Isabella
and Porterville) I had to stop several times just to warm up my
freezing hands. I had on my tights, mock-T and sweatshirt and
was still cold. But, neat thing about dropping so fast was that
I felt the thermoclines - it would warm up 2-3 degrees at a pop.
By the time I hit glennville it was about 50 degrees. Felt like
the Mojave again!
In Glennville I stopped for lunch at a cafe there - best place
I've eaten yet. They burned my bacon cheeseburger a little but
it was still wonderful and the service and price MORE than compensated
for it. They were great.
From Glennville I had a mild 4 mile climb then another 20 miles
of mostly downhill. Gotta love it!!
Finally ended up here in Porterville around 5:30pm. Porterville
is where all of the Oranges you eat come from. There are tons
and tons of Oraanges here. Hell, they lay in the roads like dead
squirrels do in Chester County.
Speaking of dead squirrels, I haven't seen the # of roadkills
I expected. Saw a few snakes Friday and Saturday and see a cat
or bird or squirrel every now and then but not much else. One
snake skared the beejesus out of me b/c I thought it was alive
and I ran over it (eeewwwww!) I let out a yell when I saw what
I was going to hit and before I realized it was already dead...
I did see lots of chipmunks yesterday just like their name, they
let out little chips to warn each other that the evil human is
approaching. The chipmunks seem to coexist with all the cows I
saw who were either terrified by my coming and stampeded (away
from me) or just stared at me, just like Thai people....
I found the campground about 4 miles south
of town - they gave me a $2 discount b/c I'm riding across the
country ($10/night). After setting up my tent I rode back into
town. It seemed like a ghost town. then I realized it was sunday
night. I'm so used to Thailand that I forgot America closes early
on Sunday night. I asked one person if there was a pizzeria or
something around and she directed me to Pizza Hut (ugh!) but,
I was hungry so, I went.
Lucky me! There was an all-you-can-eat buffet right next door!!!!
The food was good and, of course, I got my money's worth.....
Which brings me to today.
I'm finally taking a rest day. You don't want to know the volume
of junkfood I have eaten and plan to eat between last night and
tomorrow morning. My breakfast description of yesterday should
be enough to turn everyone off (except James, he's like me - he'll
eat anything!).
Tomorrow I'm planning to wander out to Madera (just northeast
of Fresno) then into Monterey by Thursday - if Lanette is there...
I gotta call her tonight and see....
So, that's it for now. I've just kind of been rambling along here
as you can tell... Let me know what you think - do you want to
hear more about something or less about something? Also, if you
have any questions just ask. I might even tell you what John's
little "problem" was.... just kidding, john....
This is the Z-Man, live from the middle
of nowhere signing off.
<<Previous
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10
11 Next>>
|