Currently enjoying some rest & relaxation with family in Las Vegas & I get to type on a computer so hopefully I can catch up quicker! Wahoo! Here goes.
Day 14: Martha made us oatmeal, we made coffee & Bob gave us more tips on routes to our next destination: Friant, CA. He warned us about gangs in the area & a cyclist who got attacked a few weeks ago (sorry Mom, I know you don’t want to hear that). He said it’s nothing to be paranoid about, just to be aware of; be hesitant of cars pulled over on the side of the road. Thanks again, Bob & Martha, for all your help. We appreciated it immensely! We packed up, said our goodbyes & biked into town to mail unneeded gear home & extra gear we can use later to Denver (where we’ll be staying with family). In total, we purged 10 lbs! Thanks for the inspiration, Bob 🙂 Stuff we sent home included some clothing, extra bike parts we haven’t & won’t ever use, as well as things we have used but can live without – like our extra solar charger, collapsible “bucket/wash basin”, my homemade deodorant & hair conditioner (I can use lotion if I’m really desperate), & other things I’m forgetting. The things we mailed to Denver were extra soap & olive oil – stuff we’ll need but have too much of at the moment. We stopped at a pizza buffet for lunch. Yum! To have a salad again, hallelujah! Then we spent a good part of the afternoon at a coffee shop to catch up on communication & blogging.
We had thought about taking a day off, but with the push for Las Vegas we wanted to at least get some miles under our belt, so we waited to start biking until late afternoon – a quasi-break. Per Bob & chatty Larry’s recommendations, we biked along the south shore of Bass Lake. It was so nice biking along this route; I’m glad we went that way. It was very pretty, quiet & peaceful. It was a healthy climb getting up there, though. We hit a personal record with grade coming around one corner at 17%! This time, no walking 🙂 One guy stopped along the side of the road to chat. Remembering Bob’s warning I was hesitant to stop but read the situation and it seemed fine. He lived up the road & wanted to know all about our trip. He was fun to talk to. I’m glad we stopped. Beyond Bass Lake we had some nice downhills & great shoulders in some spots. Even the littlest things make a big difference 🙂
Our sunset ride to Lake Millerton (our resting point for the day, outside of Friant) was nice – pretty scenery, sunny hillsides & cooler weather. It was a very peaceful ride. We made it to the lake just in time after the sun went down. In no time at all, we pitched the tent, made dinner, changed our clothes & went straight to bed. We woke up in the middle of the night to coyotes yelping. Not the howl I normally think of but more of a dog barking. There were a couple of them & they were very close. I wasn’t sure what their calls were communicating to each other so I was a little nervous & couldn’t sleep for a while. Surprise surprise.
Day 15: Up early, made oatmeal, packed up, shared a quick campground pay shower (ya know…to…save water & money! 😉 Leaving the park I had a little problem with my chain but not enough to stop us. I tried fixing it but no luck. Our first destination for the day was Fresno. On the way we stopped at a winery, did a little tasting, then shared a bottle down by the river as we ate our lunch.
Once we made it to Fresno we ran some errands: bike shop to fix my chain (The Bike Shop at Woodward-they were awesome!), REI for bike shorts, snacks at a Mexican restaurant, & 2 post offices. 2 post offices? Yes, 2. Long story short, my mom made us business cards to hand out about our trip (I’ll explain later) & only certain post offices do general delivery. We didn’t know that so the post office we sent them to passed them on to another Fresno post office where they had yet to arrive. Given our push for Vegas we didn’t want to wait & decided to have them sent back 🙁 The business cards are for all the people we meet along this trip. They always want to know how to follow our journey & it’s sometimes awkward to bring up the fundraising first thing so sometimes it never comes up. We wanted a way to spread the word without bombarding people with info every time we meet them. Before leaving town we stopped at the Tioga Sequoia Brewery for a drink, food & to play cards. We had tried their beer in Yosemite, liked it & decided to stop by on the way through. A short rest here, then back on the road.
We biked until just after sundown to Kingsburg, CA, where we stayed at King’s Inn Motel. On the way there another car pulled over on the side of the road (gulp) but he was just letting us know if we needed a place to stay we were welcome to stay with him. Unfortunately, he was a bit off our course & would add some extra miles we didn’t want, given our rush. That was nice of him, though! He also complimented us on our visibility (vests & great lights!). Once we rolled in to the motel we jumped in the pool, did some laundry, got some food from a food truck, watched TV & passed out.
Reflections:
1. There are so many terms for sneaky camping that we’ve heard from people along this trip & I love them all: free, pirate, bandit, boondock, stealth & wild! I’m sure there are more & I can’t wait to hear them. Anyone out there have others?
2. I think I mentioned this in the last post, but it stuck with me so I’ll say it again. It was a little shocking coming out of Yosemite & being reintroduced to busy city life. It went from so quiet, peaceful & beautiful to loud, busy, hectic & in your face. The same thing happens to me every year when we leave the Porkies & I don’t like it 🙁
3. I had a sense of disappointment when we left Yosemite that I didn’t do it justice; that I should’ve seen more. I often feel like that when I leave a place (like the Porkies) & have to remind myself of one of my favorite sayings: don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. That’s what future trips are for!
Well, a delicious dinner we didn’t have to cook is almost ready! What a treat! I’ll have to brake for food & then hopefully get back at catching up 🙂 Until next time.
Whitney