On Tuesday we rode from Big Sur to Watsonville and we got very, very lost. At first I was frustrated about getting lost, but by the end of the ride I was just enjoying all the ridiculous events of the day and spending time with friends.
I am now going to attempt to explain the day to you knowing full well that I will fail to capture the essence of the day. It is probably one of those, “you had to be there” types of stories, so you will have to imagine me laughing as you read.
First I should explain that getting lost is nothing new to us; we get lost and turned around many times a day. Normally when this happens we just whip out our phones and check the internet for directions or call the support van to help us find the way. However, since we had been riding through Big Sur the day before all our phones were constantly roaming for service which quickly drained the battery. On top of that, we camped that night so there was no way for us to plug them in and recharge. That being said, all our phones were either dying or already completely dead.
Everything was going great until we saw the inevitable sign; “No Bicycles Allowed on freeway.” The first two riders did not see the sign and continued on the freeway (they ended up making it to the destination 2 hours before the rest of us). Margie and I exited and climbed a large hill. While climbing the hill we were nearly taken out by a car accident in the left hand lanes that sent a car skidding across our path. Once we got to the top of the hill we made a few quick calls on our dying phones and determined that we were going the wrong way. So we went back down the massive hill that we just climbed.
At the bottom we met the other part of our group and decided to use my phone to find directions knowing that it would kill the battery. As soon as the directions were on my phone we were feverishly coping them down onto any paper we could find because my phone was flashing and beeping as it was about to shut down. Just as we wrote down the last direction the phone turned off. It was a team effort as one person had the phone, someone else had the pen and another rider had the three pieces of paper that we copied all the directions onto. Unfortunately for Margie and me, the first direction was to go back up the big hill we had just climbed and descended. We climbed the hill again and at the top we asked the nice police men (who were there cleaning up the before mentioned car accident) if we were headed in the right direction. Of course we were not going the right way so we all went back down the hill.
Eventually, we found the bike path that led to the road we were supposed to be on. I decided to ignore the stop sign at the end of the bike path and turned left on the road and went down an even bigger hill. When I turned around to see where my team was there were all back at the top of the hill, so I had to climb back up the hill to meet them. We didn’t know if we were supposed to go left or right on the road. I volunteered to scout out the road to the left again and Margie went to the right. So I traveled to the very bottom of the hill and the end of the road and did not find the street we were looking for. Thus, I climbed back up the hill to the rest of the team and told them that we all needed to go to the right since the street was not to the left. If you understand how this story is going you know that going to the right meant climbing even farther up this massive hill. We climbed and climbed and climbed. The climb was not as long as the mountain climbs the day before, but it was much steeper. Eventually we got to the top and did not find the road we were looking for, so you know what that means…back to the bottom. Turns out we had to go under an overpass at the very bottom of the hill to get to the street we were looking for. All of this had taken about an hour and a half and we only traveled about 1 mile in the correct direction.
We followed the directions for a few more miles until we saw a Starbucks and we knew that it was time for a break. The break lifted our spirits and after lunch we were back on the road again. The afternoon was not nearly as eventful as the morning. There were some kamikaze squirrels, food challenges and vowel discussions, but those are all fairly normal to our days now. Eventually we met a man named Mitch who was out biking. He was kind enough to show us the way to Watsonville and suggested we visit a pie shop. Pie sounded delicious, but at that point all we wanted to do was get off our bikes. We parted ways with Mitch and headed to the church where we were staying.
Once we got to the church we all stumbled off our bikes and laid in the parking lot not wanting to move. While we were laying there a lady from the church came out to tell us that someone called the church and was bringing us pies. All of the sudden there was much excitement, screaming, and yelling from the group. Mitch brought us two delicious pies that we thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you, Mitch, for your generosity.
All in all, it was a bottom middle sort of day, but great memories were made.
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