Flea The Race

Day	20	Date	28th May 2015
Distance Total Distance	67.2km 1,202km	Weather	Sunny
Rolling Time Total Rolling	04:08:40 69:20:16	Terrain	Flattish!
Climbing Total Climbing	491m 10,159m	Spend	Airbnb – $41.00 Mc Donald’s Brekky $5.39 Bar Food & Drinks $39.00
Average Speed	16.2k/h	Sleeping	Airbnb
Max Speed	41.8k/h	Difficulty	Easy

Finally the first day in quite a few where I don’t have to cycle 100km to get some sleep!  I’m booked into an Airbnb tonight in Crescent City and only need to cycle 70km today to get there.  I started off early enough with a couple of stops along the way to walk down some trails to look-out points along the way to see some various sea formations like the Natural Bridges below.

Today was also a big day as I hit the Oregon-Californian border on route, the last state of America that I will pass through before getting to Mexico, I met a pair of Aussies that had stopped at the border to get some pictures so I offered to take a few for them and in return I got myself into some more of my pictures.  It was definitely motivating to get to California, hopefully the fog will be less and the nights a little warmer as I am a good bit more south now.  Crossing the border was also funny as my little stash when from legit to not so legit with the stroke of a pedal as I crossed the state line!

Just passed the border into California there is a road block ahead checking for agricultural produce that isn’t allowed into the state to keep their own crops disease free, when I got to the checkpoint the officer just waved me onwards and wished me a good day, stash safe I rode on enjoying the fact that I was now in California and hopefully I can relax a bit more as I still have a full month left to complete my trip.  Crescent City was only 19 miles form the border so I rode on at an easy enough pace until I got to my destination passing through a lot of farmland and odd little villages along the way.

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My Airbnb for the night is at a place named Kat’s Ranch, its a house on 4 acres of land and Kat keeps hens, yard bunnies, horses, cats, dogs, and random stray humans that decide to stop by!  Her house is real cosy with a huge fire in the living room and a carpet as soft as a mattress, the place inside was huge.  My double room was built onto the house but had its own entrance and I could freely use the kitchen and bathroom in the main house so the first thing I did was have a shower, When I met Kat first and took off my shades she said “god you look rough” must be something to do with the remaining black eyes I have, she should have seen me a week ago!  I had a look in the mirror after my shower and I think I’m nearly back to normal, my eyes in a few more days will fully clear but there much better than they were before.

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After the shower I decided to tackle my bike and give it the once over as I haven’t given it a minutes attention since I started on the trip.  I borrowed some engine oil from Kats garage to oil the chain and the cogs as they were bone dry, I brought a bottle of oil but it all leaked out and I chucked it ages ago.  After the oiling I tuned the gears as they were not selecting properly on the rear cassette, to fix this I just needed to wind some slack out of the rear gear cable and it was all aligned nicely again.  I then swapped around the front and rear tyres as the rear is much more worn than the front, they were both new at the start of the trip but the weight on the back is chewing through the tyre much quicker than the front, hopefully this will allow me get the full trip out of the way without having to replace them.  Lastly I tightened up the rear cassette a few notches thinking this might be causing the noise that I assumed to be the crank bearings.  That was all that needed to be done, otherwise everything was in good shape.

Later Kat took me in to Crescent City a few km away to check out some of the local bars, they’re really shitty looking on the outside, proper dive bars but there much better on the inside, we shared a mixed food platter in the first bar and had some local beers, after that we had a beer in another bar ‘The Turf’ as I had read reviews about it and wanted to see it so she took me there.  After that we got some bottles of beer in a Liquor Store and she drove us out to a nearby lake where we sat at the edge of a wooden pier looking onto the lake and drank a beer as dusk crept in over the lake.  It was all silent bar the symphony of nighttime wildlife, a very cool way to spend the evening.

After the lake we got back to the house and stoked up the fire pit where we sat about with a few more bottles chatting away.  Kat has Three horses and offered to take me horse riding the next day, something I’ve not really done before so it will be cool to try it out and there are lots if nice trails in the area to go and see.  I got to bed at around 1am and it sure was nice to fall into an comfy double bed again after all the cycling of the last few days.