Woke up early to swing a pick in Cooper Gulch. Improved a narrow chute through the brambles into a working family trail to the skate park.
Frisbee golf maze: golfers before 10 with Pabst tallboys wondered why we were messing with their good thing. Loquacious golfer without a voice box sending out mixed messages.
City worker: let’s take out the whole thing and replace it with a real golf course. Just drop agent orange.
Headed north for an afternoon mini-tour: let’s blow off some steam at Patrick’s Point. Me, KC Wright and DBO spun through the Bottoms in the pre-golden hour. The yellow tint of my photochromatic lenses made everything glow. Let’s stop for a photo op near that peeling barn. Let’s take all optional singletrack and stop for most vistas.
Bearded man-boy long haul truckin’ through the bottoms to Arcata: Can you tell me how to get to the square? He had animal jaw bones lashed to his front rack.
Camel Rock was breaking, 3 feet and semi-offshore.
At the Ray’s in Trinidad I bought a small package of Red Vines, two bananas, a bar of chocolate, one Red Chair IPA and an Eel River Triple Exultation. Loaded the beer bottles into my panniers for the Patrick’s Point Road rollers.
Seascape Restaurant: big heifer Azteca burrito with vegetable beef. Rectangular object, footlong, grilled golden brown and wrapped like a gift in tissue: infinite layers of crispy tortilla. Placed a styrofoam bucket of salsa in my bottle cage (and it survived the journey.)
Loud waitress with runny blue mascara: no you can’t order to go from here, sit down and relax a while. Contemplate the mermaid, the forbidden catch. Tangle with the cougars vacationing at the Lost Whale B&B–aww Kevin, you just miss yer mom.
Left the restaurant with our burros, found my bike outside with a flat as the waitress inside cackled.
Patricks’ Point rollers: sink into the drops and spin, then hold it up the other side! Do not spill the salsa. Can we have a beer yet?
Patrick’s Point campground, hike and bike camp: pair of Canadian youths in super skinny jeans, hitchhiking from Edmonton to San Francisco. Portland couple touring on a tandem, guy in a bivy who looked 30 but was actually 50.
Campground at dusk, bike gang with headlamps lookin’ for wood. Cannot find. Canadians stole a few armfuls from sleeping RVers.
Ate my burrito and loved it, verbally challenged myself to finish the entire container of salsa and succeeded.
Fire ring, chocolate, beer, small talk and rants: I hate the Arcata transient kids with their dogs. I toured Canada north of Glacier on my carbon Orbea with only a backpack averaging 150 miles a day. Here, let me show you a photo gallery on my iPhone. I work at a running store and co-founded a nonprofit that delivers shoes to small villages in Ethiopia. Does everybody hate the Governator? Does it ever snow here? Portland is the brain drain of the Pacific Northwest. I’m going to buy a Bike Friday–it’s going to be my last bike.
Read a chapter of The Trial with my headlamp in our tent that smelled like burrito Azteca.
Woke up early to free the dog, found a few intact beers that nobody wanted to carry and got peer pressured into beer for breakfast. Lagunitas Censored: just a fermented malt tea.
Hit the rollers back to town and did a little hammering with a morning beer in my stomach. Strange feeling.
At the Beachcomber Cafe in Trinidad: Kevin maxed out the flirt-o-meter. And what does the shy guy in the back want? Trinidad Special on a slug, please: cream cheese, tomato, onion and Larrupin’ Sauce. Que rico, que perfecto.
Derek got stuck in a trainwreck conversation with a flaky European property owner wearing six different patterns on his clothing and assorted pirate’s jewelry. Chuckled a little bit at his expense and made an effort not to turn my head in their direction. Went back for a carrot cake cupcake that blew my mind. And a refill of Black Thunder. Oh yes.
Perfect weather on the Scenic Drive. Riding bikes along the seaside cliff, enjoying the view. Feeling lucky. Ringing bells for pedestrians on the Hammond Trail. Spinning back through the bottoms with miles of smiles.
