Too much Insanitity (Stinsen Beach to Arcata)

So I know that I haven't blogged in a very long time, and I'm really sorry about that. The ability to get on Internet is harder then it seems going through Northern California. Firstly I was riding through Northern California, which is not very inhabited and where there are people they really don't have much use for things like public libraries. (Well I actually think that the U.S. government has forgotten about this region of the country... except for the DEA where it does most of it's business.) Also every time I did hit a library they were closed, and the one time that I saw computers in an Internet cafe they were trying to charge me ten cents a minute. That is way too expensive, and I don't deal with people who won't barter with me . SO no one ever go to the Cookie Company in Fort Bragg. They are total bastards, when I asked the manager if she would let me get on the Internet in exchange to give tons of free, really incredible, advertising she looked at me like I was crazy and told me that she couldn't make those sort of decisions. Anyways so much has happened to me in this time period it's hard to know where to start. I guess I can start with last night because it is the most prevalent in my mind.
Two days ago I had extremely high hopes, thinking that I was going to see some familiar faces, getting a food drop and having a nice comfortable bed to stay in when I got to Arcata. One very bad thing after the next happened. First my drop and I missed each other. I don't really know how it happened but through a lack of communication and a freak landslide that separated us it became impossible for me to meet with Adam Lister and company and get some desperately needed supplies. I hadn't bought food in days and the only thing that I had left was half a jar of peanut butter and 10 lemons which I picked off of a tree when I stopped in Myers Flatt and hung out with some tweekers for a bit. When I realized I missed my food I was devastated, it was such a terrible blow to my mental stamina. Imagine looking forward to something for 5 days so much, like have never been happier to have something that was definitely going to happen taken away from you, and you are starving and extremely dirty and on such a low point that seeing a friendly face and having a little bit of extra food would be the greatest thing ever ripped out of your hands with no possible way to salvage any of it. The only thing that I could do (which I always do when I'm really feeling shitty) was to keep riding. I still had the hope in my head of making it to Arcata, getting a hot shower seeing some friendly faces and hopefully seeing some of my other friends the next day. So I rode and rode getting more and more depressed and further and further into misery. AS I was riding I got two flat tires! Yes my tire and about twenty minutes later the valve on my new tube exploded making me change it again. This to say the least put me into some of the worst spirits of the entire trip. After riding for hours I finally made it to Arcata, just to realize that my hot shower and my bed and any chance I had of salvaging the day were actually not there. There was actually nothing in Arcata for me just another town with a college (that was closed for the day Cezer Chavez day of course.) and I didn't have anything to do. Just when I was about to admit defeat. Yes I was extremely close to wasting bunch of money going to a hotel room and crying, and yes I did think about bailing on the whole trip because I figured it was just becoming to much to bear another girl on a Surly bike rode by me and asked if I was on a tour. I knew that I had to act fast and said yes and told her my situation quickly and ask if I could maybe stay at her house. (I know this was a super bold move but it had to happen.) To my utter delight... maybe the happiest that I've ever been in my life she told me about how she knows all about bike touring and the community and that she would be happy to let me stay with her. It was the single greatest thing that could have happened to me at that time. I had not showered, washed my body at all (except for my gouch area because if I don't wash that daily I will probably get some sort of mushroom growing down there and it may not be the greatest thing ever.) for 6 days, I had ridden extremely hard being coaxed by the idea of a bed and food for the last 4 days, so when someone was there to help me it was one of the best things that could have possibly happened. Thank you Kenzie so much for what you did it was huge, maybe to the point of saving me trip. Now that I feel good and am in high hopes I can look back on yesterdays events and laugh but I promise they really were not that funny at the time. That is one of many crazy things that has happened to me since my last post many bad some good but I'm feeling good today so i should stay positive.
It is important to understand that this has been one of the wettest spring recorded in California in a while. I was told that it rains on average 40'' a year in California and this year it was rained 80" I feel every single on of those inches of rain. When I have any opportunity to get out of it for a bit it is a massive opportunity that I make sure to try my hardest so my endeavor succeeds. This led me to a funeral, I'm serious . Someone told me of a funeral that was going on and I knew that I had to go to the after party which I was informed was in timber Cove trailer park. I should up there pretty nervous, not really knowing how to act or what to do, so I know on the office door. Everyone was in there morning and although I felt pretty awkward and really like a massive scum bag I knew that I had to ask them if I could camp there. I was told by Randi (Manger and Daughter of the deceased.) "Dave would have wanted it this was way, and if you stay you have to stay up and help drink the keg." I was instantly sold. I set up camp went back over and started kind of acting like I knew Dave, you know not really buttering it up or anything but definitely acting sorry ( I genuinely was sorry though this guy sounded like a total bad ass I Mean we wanted a keg at his funeral.) and begging to get continually more and more drunk. By the end of the night (I had made friends with the funeral attendees.) we were free style rapping and talking about everything and how if I would have gotten there a year early Dave would of some how cororsed me into staying an working the trailer park. Also during this time and entire lamb and about 35 crabs were consumed, I definitely did my share of the eating. It was overall a really great time. I'm so happy I got to meet everyone at Timber Cove, and I promise next time I'm in Fort Ross I will stop by and say hello. I have tons of other stories, I just don't have the blogging time to tell them all. This has been a very wild part of a very wild trip. So when I get back home remind me to tell everybody about sleeping in a church ( I thought I was going to die and needed some salvation from god.) and hanging out with tweekers in the North, I have lots of good shit to say bout that but it is probably better that I don't put it out on the Internet anyways. I hope everyone is safe and well, I'm going to make it go Oregon soon so I think computer access will get better. I have made it far and still have a ways to go. I hope I don't die before the end. (I'm semi serious.)
Tim
p.s. No pictures I had to write this in a limited amount of time.
p.s.s. This may have some typos and is not the smoothest reading but I have to go, I will edit it next comp i get to.

Surviving the Sprawl (San Fransisco to Stinson Beach)

The last few days have greatly tested my physical, and mental endurance. Yesterday was one of the biggest storms I have ever experienced, and definitely the biggest storm that I have ever camped through. I was forced to take a lay over day in Samual P. Taylor state park, if I would have collapsed my tent it would have gotten so wet that I would have had no where that was even semi dry to sleep. It rained so hard, that even under the grove of redwoods where I was hidden, all of my stuff became soaked. My tent got to the point of almost being useless, it became so saturated with water that it dripped through. Every single article of clothing, my sleeping gear, all of my food, and all of my cookware became so wet that it came to the point of being worthless. I more or less slept in a puddle last night, so this morning when I saw that the clouds were starting to break up I became so excited that I packed up and left my campsite (with all of my stuff soaking wet... The state that it is still in.) by 7:45. The one good thing about staying in the state park for an extra day was that it allowed me to go to the food bank. A local, Ace, told me about it after showing me different plants that I could eat, and make into teas. He did this so that no matter what happened I would always have something to live off of. As he showed me he told me some Indian story about the origin of medicine making sure that his lesson wouldn't be lost. It won't be, I have been constantly looking for Indian lettuce, not because i will ever find enough to fill me up, but I feel like a bad ass eating it. When he finished showing me native plants and had some tea that we brewed he told me "you know if you don't want to waste a bunch of time collecting plants there is a food bank on Tuesdays and Thursdays." I was sold going to the food bank first thing the next morning. It wasn't open yet, and so I didn't feel so bad about taking food out of the mouths of the homeless (I'm homeless... Seriously I swear to you I'm becoming more and more like a homeless person) I helped set up the food bank. When I went through I got a bunch of food, but after riding with it for a day I may have to get rid of some of it somehow. It all takes some preparation to make, and is extremely heavy. I haven't decided because the pound of ground beef I took does sound considerably better than the nuts and dried fruit that I have, to my dismay recently run out of. Riding the last few days has been very tedious.

Making it through San Fransisco by bike is not as easy as it seems. The city limits weren't very hard to get through, and actually extremely fun to ride. (I hit a new speed record of going 39 mph bombing Hayte St. with my fully loaded bike.) Once I got out of the city into east Merin though things became slightly different. The neighborhood sprawled for what seemed like forever. I became extremely frustrated, and depressed trying to make it out of such a densely populated area. Constantly having to stop at every red light, watching the thousands and thousands of soccer moms driving their screaming kids from point A to B; having no regard for anything except for making it home to cook an organic dinner stressed me out so badly that I'm happy to say I loath east Merin. It seemed as though everyone was acting so environmentally conscious, riding bikes, eating locally, but to me it seemed as though they were doing exactly that, acting. No ones was nice there, there was no since of community, or compassion for anything except for what was seen to be as cool. The people where just big city suburbanites trying their hardest to fill the role of the yuppie which they have been deemed. (A wave was not returned to me once the entire time was riding my bike through that city. I feel like the point of riding a bike there was to show not only how fast and strong you are, but also that they have enough money to afford the nicest carbon bike on the market.) I can't express how deeply joyed I am to be out of that city, and a lot of its surrounding area. I will hopefully be out of Merin today and be done with this county, but I'm not sure. I have been loosing motivation in the last couple of days. Not only physical exhaustion, but my mental capabilities are starting to collapse kind of. I am becoming increasingly more lonely. Before it was my goal to make it to San Fran, and now that I've made it and am though the city I am kind of lost, kind of feeling as though I bit off a little more then I can handle. I guess there is no bailing though, and really the only thing that I can do is ride. I just hope that I hit a second wind soon.

Tim

p.s. Sorry for a lack of pictures I have been lazy about taking them.

Nice People (Santa Cruz to San Francisco)

Afters riding 85 miles yesterday I made it to San Francisco. When I got here I felt as though I were going to die. Not only was it the longest day of biking that I have ever even came close to having, but I also didn't get a very good nights sleep two nights ago (I'll explain in a further). By the time I hit the city I was the closest to bonking that I have been on my entire trip. At the city limits it started to become clear that there were no camping options, unless I felt like sleeping with the bums underneath an overpass. Although this seems glorious, and a great story to tell I've been getting smarter, and now know doing things like that are not that awesome. (I wouldn't sleep, probably be murdered, and have my bike stolen and sold for the scrap steel of the frame.) Saying that, it was worth swallowing my pride and going to a hostel. Since I have no maps, and don't know how to really use my gps I was utterly lost in the city, and knew that the only way to possibly find a safe place to sleep was to ask someone. I asked the most qualified person that I could find, a very tall, skinny, dready that was standing on the railing between the board walk and the beach doing yoga. He answered my question with more information then I could have ever wanted, giving me every hostel in the city limits, its address, and phone number. When he was done giving me this information his what I took to be girlfriend came up and began explaining to me that they lived on a yoga farm near Sacramento. When I acted slightly interested they asked if I wanted to do a yoga section to revive myself. Of course I took this! My body has been in shambles and anything to help fix it is happily excepted. This was the beginning of my yoga training. The first thing they showed me was the corpse pose. I lied on my back in the middle of the Great highway board walk and slowly relaxed every muscle set starting with my toes and going to the tip of my scalp. To my astonishment it actually really worked well. I was to the point of bonking before this, and doing the corpse pose gave me enough energy to ride my bike up to the golden gate bridge and then back the other way about 4 miles to find the hostel and party really hard when I made it there. This would have been impossible without being given this little bit of assistance. Upon telling them how much better I felt a buzz of excitement ran through the two of them and they started to show me more and more. They did everything from a entire lesson I could do to stretch after a long day of bike riding, to have the guy put me on his feet and stretching out my back that way. These people helped me so much my back is for the first time kind of lined up. I need to keep following the ways of the master. If not I may become to tight, seize up as I ride my bike down a hill and run into truck, to get drug on the highway 30 feet. (No one would ever be that dumb! Haha). These were not the best people that I have met in the last few days though.
Two nights ago as I was riding away from Santa Cruz by default ended up in the town of Davenport California. The only reason that I stopped was because the town is consist of a bakery, a run down shack next to the bakery, and ten houses. I thought that if I looked through the dumpster I could find some thrown out treat. I checked and to my dismay there was nothing there. Instead of giving up, I decided to take the direct approach and just ask. When first asking the guy if they had any day only stuff that they were planning on throwing out he looked at me like come on, are you serious. Then softening up, asked why I would ask such a stupid thing. Upon explaining the situation his entire demeanor changed, with a huge smile he gave me not only tons and tons of old muffins, but also two loaves of fresh bread and butter to eat with it! I came out of the bakery very satisfied and went over to sit on a bench next to the shack. As soon as I sat down a scraggly looking, half Japanese, guy came up to me and asked if I was looking to by some drug. I told him that I didn't have any money, and his answer to that was "You're riding your bike against a head wind and I can tell you have been for days. This was enough payment for him." So I sat there, hung out with him for bit doing what people do, and to my utter surprise another guy burst out of the shack. It turns out that Nef is the ceo and president of Homergrown surf boards, which was based out of this small shack in a town of no more than 30 people. His friend Chris just kind of hangs out with him and tries distracting him from getting any work down. These guys where two of the biggest characters that I have ever met, talking to me about everything from world unification to Nef's newest surfboard which we cut by standing on top a massive piece of redwood carving the board out with a chainsaw. (Maybe one of the most dangerous things that I have ever heard.) The massive log washed up onto the beach about a month ago. Instead of planing the wood into boards and selling it to get money for the entire town, Nef put it onto himself to make a surf board out of it and when some yuppy from Merin buys it, the entire town would throw a party with the money. (I'm not joking this was the plan they were telling me.) As we sat there and became more and more inebriated other people began to come out of the woodwork. Eddy was the 1984 Mexico surf champion, he now is a proud resident of Devonport, and the self proclaimed surf king of the area. As he was telling me this all of his friend were giving him shit and telling me not to believe a word. Although I'm positive that we has dead serious. I also met a Harley rider with his 3rd grade son that would come along with him to where ever he travelled. They just happened to land in Davenport because the people there were just too nice. The entire town is full of characters and more or less devoid of the law. This makes it to be the coolest town I've ever been to. Everyone is friendly, accepting, and brings a different aspect to the town that makes it extremely unique. They also have a militia that's ready to protect the area in case of the apocalypse, when that happens this might be the first place that i head. Right when I was about to leave (it was getting very dark, night biking is scary!) they told me where to camp if I swore to tell no one. When I got there I understand not only was it a beautiful free beach that the cops would never find, but also there is a really great surf break that I'm sure is supposed to kept under wraps so it doesn't become over run with tourist. As I left town I asked Nef for the one Homegrown surf shop flag he owned. He gave it to me telling me to try and not become the grom that I probably used to be, and that I'm welcome to come back to Davenport as long as I was cool. Although the flag is huge and will give me lots of problems, I will fly it with pride. When I finally left and got to the campground the night sky was perfectly clear, and I was perfectly out of my mind, so I figured that it would be a great idea to sleep underneath the stars. I woke up at 2 am to being down poured upon. Thank god I had the common sense to set up my tent instead of trying to tough it out in the rain. It has rained since that night, and I don't think its supposed to stop for another couple of days. This is the beginning of the mess that is my vacation.
Tim
P.s. I honestly think the only reason that all of these people are down with me is because I am starting to become extremely fifthly, showering with doctor Bronners take the edge off but my base level personal hygiene is as low as ever. I think it make me less threatening, or just less appealing because this is close to the worst I've ever smelled. The only time that is has been worst was the first time that I went over to Matt Bakers house!

Learning Some Respect (Mid Big Sur Region to Santa Cruz)

Phil
My Ride
Firstly it is important to admit to everyone that I have cheated in the last few days. I have been offered two rides and have taken both of them . The first was through the second half of the Big Sur region which was about 50 miles, a full day of bike riding. I know that this seems like kind of a cop out, especially since that is one of the hilliest sections of the trip, but it was the only possible way that I was going to get around the hole in highway. Later that day I made it to Monte Ray taking another ride of about 20 miles from Monte ray to Moss landing, which is where I stayed on a sail boat in a yacht club with my new friend Phil. Although I could have easily ridden this section it is was through an industrial area, (not really worth it) and a lot of sprayed farm land (which Phil informed me has deterred him from riding his bike for the last couple of years because of one time getting hit by a pesticide cloud. I don't really need that.). Anyways its more about the adventure, and its not worth giving up any experiences just because I'm too proud to ride in some trucks. Other than this slight cheating my trip has been raging full force, and because of that I have learned some valuable lessons about respecting things that I cannot control.
Yesterday it was storming extremely hard at moss landing so I decided that I should take a lay over day and stay in the warm, dry comfort that was Phil's boat. Since he is a 66 year old man, and has a girlfriend that's about twenty years younger than him he left me for the day so he could go and satisfy his own manly need. (He informed me that things like having sex and surf don't get less fun as you get older, and that no matter what its never worth giving up these thing for material comforts like a fancy house and a prius.) During his absences I checked the surf, the waves looked glassy and perfect, kind of the same way that they look when you watch a surf movie. In my ignorance I thought that I could conquer the 8 foot swell of a manly wave that was supposedly for loces (local) only. Since it was about my forth time ever really surfing this was maybe not the greatest of plan that I have ever conceived, but I figured it would be a good story. I borrowed Phil's board and wetsuit and since I couldn't get a hold of him I just assumed that it was okay. ( As I've said early assumptions are dumb.) As a began to paddle out into the surf I started to realize that I was in over my head. I continued without fear though, my own hubris stopped me from paddling back to the shore and taking the what would have been insistent storm of insults from the loces! I stayed out there for about half an hour taking one of the most brutal beating of my life. I would try to drop into the wave deep and would just get absolutely dominated time after time. After a while of this I became so tired that I knew my time was up in the water and began to paddle in. As I was doing this, I got caught in a back current which was pulling me out to sea. My exhaustion won, and all of the fighting I did really got me nowhere, so I accepted the fact of being pulled and let it happened. I was sucked over to a rock jetty, and as soon as I got my bearings a wave crushed down on me and slammed me and Phil's board into the rock. I came out unscathed as I normally do, and when I began to inspect the board my heart sank. I realized one of the back fins was missing and there were a large number gashes that I found in the plexy glass. I felt sick to my stomach, not knowing how I going to tell someone that I met only a few days ago that; not only did I borrow his stuff without really asking, but then destroyed it in the process. I could have probably hidden he entire incident from him since he was still not there when I got back to the boat. I knew in my gut that if I did this I wouldn't only fail myself, but really loose one of my new good friend so I waited for him to return. He didn't come back until this morning (right before I was about to leave) and the entire time my guilt consumed me. I hit one of the lowest points that I have hit in a very long time. As soon as I saw him a burst out about breaking his board and would do anything to make it better. He looked at me for a second with dead seriousness in his eyes, then broke down and cracked a smile beginning to laugh. The board was that way the entire time, I just didn't realize it was messed up when I took it out, probably because I felt bad about it in the first place. He told me "There's a reason that this board was in the storage unit and not in the back of the truck." And then gently reminded me that a ten foot swell is really not the best place to be unless you actually know what you are doing. Which I kind of proved to myself i didn't. It taught me a valuable lesson that hopefully I won't soon forget. I've felt sorry about all the times I've done shit like that to people, kind of, but this was the first time that I felt really deep remorse about it.
The other very valuable lesson that I have learned is that it is illegal and extremely dangerous to ride on the freeway. On my way into Santa Cruz this morning I thought it would be a good idea to take the 1 instead of the detour route which was suggested by the rode signs. As I got further and further into the city I started to understand that the detour was probably a better bet. People where not very happy with me. Cars going 65 miles an hour where buzzing me over and over again (prius drivers are the worst. Since they "save the environment" they think it give them the right to be total dickheads to bike riders, as they buzz me they honk to make sure that I swerve a little so that when they hit and kill me the police report can claim its my fault.) I was told many times to "get off the road you crazy mother fucker" but I had nowhere to go. It all came to an end when a cop car started tailing me and informed me the illegality of what I was doing. He then escorted me to the next exit, making 100% sure i was off the freeway. I think it maybe the first time a cop has ever looked out for my best interest. I made it to Santa Cruz so it was worth riding on, but I will try and not do it again. I have had a wild last couple of days and am learning some value out of all of the stupid things that I do. It's a strange contradiction because I'm looking for stories and adventure but those stories are really, not normally that funny when they happen. Traveling is a strange terrific way to live.
Tim
p.s. Fuck Prius drivers... and the Prius for that matter... and Californian Soccer moms.
p.s.s. Multi Surface touring (mountain biking the Santa Cruz hills) is a blast.

Living off the Land (San Luis Obispo to somewhere close to Big Sur)

This post wasn't supposed to be up for a couple more days, but I have hit a problem. Two days ago the HWY 1 has slid off the mountain close to Big Sur. This has left me with a huge dilemma, currently locals are the only ones allowed to walk across this section of highway. My only other other option is to take a detour over Nasumento road which is a 3000 foot vertical climb over a distance of 7 miles. This is something that I really do not want to do. I have experienced the brutality of trying and climb big passes on a fully loaded bike. Yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to take a detour up a road that told me it was the OFFICIAL pacific coast bike route. I ended up climbing 1700 vertical in a period of 5 miles and then rode down 1000 feet climbed that high again just so I could ride all the way back down to end up with my final elevation of the day at 60 feet. This was very exhausting and I was dreading the fact that I would have to do a bigger climb than that one tomorrow. Through a twist of fate something extremely lucky happened to me. As I was riding down the rode and a beautiful woman made eye contact with me and pointed. Since I was perplexed by all of the signs that said closed rode ahead I stop to talk to her. She introduced herself as Stacey and told me that there was no way around except that her husband worked on a rode crew, and that if I came back to her house with her she would help me get around it. As soon as I got inside she offered me a sandwich, and then another, and then banana, and an orange. I was so ecstatic I couldn't even express it to her. I was starving. The only things that I had eaten where some seaweed I dried out (I couldn't swallow it), a stolen avocado, and some trail mix to balance it all out. Today was probably some of the hilliest riding that i will see this entire trip so what I had eaten wasn't really enough calories to keep me going for even as long as I had gone. As a scarfed down the food she came up with the idea of scanning one of her bills into the computer and then changing the name to my own so I could fake being a local. It was the greatest plan that I had heard coming from a mom! Not only was she helping me forge a document to trick government workers, but at the same time was giving me so much hospitality I couldn't express to her how grateful I really was. By the time my fake bill was created it had started to rain hard so i was convinced to spend the night here. It has been great, it has allowed me to refortify some strength which will hopefully allow me to make the 75 miles to Monterrey tomorrow.

From the beginning of this trip, I knew that I had to spend as little money as possible just to make the entire experience into something memorable. ( I don't have very much money anyways.) This has kind of worked, but I still have bought all of my food until starting yesterday. Yesterday was the first time that I had the opportunity to steal from an orchard. Although it is kind of a bad thing to do, and to say the least is frowned upon by farmers there was no way that I was going to give up the opportunity. I hopped over a fence that had all of the penalty of avocado theft posted right next to it, stole 10 avocados, hid in the bushes as a couple of trucks passed by, and booked it out of there! Well, as fast as I could, about 6 MPH because I was riding up a hill. I have to start to do this every chance I get, not only is it a huge adrenaline rush, (I am terrified of the farmers catching me) but also I get tons of good fruit for free! I also tried to collect seaweed off the beach and dry it out to eat, but I don't know if that was a great idea. I don't think I let it dry long enough because when I tried eating it, it was like leather... Leather that tasted like sand, seawater, and a slight hint of rotten fish. I don't think that I will try eating it again unless I am either really hungry, or someone shows me the right way to do it. I think that my only hope for really living off the land is living off all the nice people in the world. I do feel guilty being a mooch but I know that it will all come around. In the future I will have to be very generous. I also have some stories to tell in exchange, and although they are not worth $10 of dorm food there is some value in them. This is actually turning into a real adventure and I'm not going to let it stop. I have fallen off track on my timing, but I have plenty of time to give, so I guess that the only thing left to do is it keep on letting the punches roll.

Tim

This post is dedicated to the Johnson Family thank you so much for all of the hospitality and kindness you have shown me, a complete stranger. If there were more people like you guys in the world it would be a way better place. Thank you so much.

Santa Barabara to San Louis Obisipo

After much convincing I have finally given in and am staring to write this blog. ( Actually I kind of wanted to the entire time, but was scared of how much of a pussy it would make me seem like. I'm over it now, I'm kind of a pussy anyways. (Thank you Dave)) This is my third day of bike adventuring and have learned many many things about what to and what not to do. Firstly and most importantly although it seems glorious to sleep in a ditch in the middle of some strange town it is actually not that fun, I don't know if it was the presence of the no trespassing signs all around me or the fact that I slept within ten feet of a clump of poison oak, but it is something that I really am not going to try again... if I can help it. I also have learned that it is actually incredibly hard to ride a fully loaded bike up massive hills with a headwind the entire way ( if anyone who reads this considers doing this trip go north to south because the wind is more difficult to deal with than I assumed.) Which really brings me to my next point of not assuming anything, because at least from my personal experience the assumptions that I make are normally wrong and normally end up leading to bad decisions. Other than that I am doing pretty well, I have learned that talking to people is extremely easy and useful. I have gotten not only a free place to sleep for a night and some strawberries just because of a willingness to put myself out there and tell everyone what my deal is. Hopefully I will hit a dumpster soon my food rations are pretty low, I'm just figuring out what to and what not to eat. Soon I think that I will have it all down, I'll let everyone know when that time comes. The first three days have been very raw maybe to the point of not that much fun at all, but I am finally starting to get the hang of it. I have gained both physical and mental strength and am starting to recognize the value of eating and sleeping, anyways I'm on vacation so I know it's going to have to get better, I mean it's spring break! There's no where to go but up. I hope everyone is safe and well, I will post as often as I can.
Tim Ronan
p.s. A pedal wrench is a invaluable tool while bike touring, don't leave home without one!