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.