Day 55-60: Aliso Viejo, Venice Beach, Santa Barbara, Lompoc, and Cayucos

Day 55: San Diego to Aliso Viejo (83 miles)

Day 56: day off in Aliso Viejo

Day 57: Aliso Viejo to Venice Beach (75 miles)

Day 58: Venice to Santa Barbara (94 miles)

Day 59: Santa Barbara to Lompoc (71 miles)

Day 60: Lompoc to Cayucos (78 miles)

After leaving Corday's apartment in downtown San Diego I spent about 20 miles making my way out of the congested city and then spent most of the rest of the day riding right along the coast with relatively little wind and only minor ups and downs as I would climb out of the little towns and then drop back down into the next. I passed through Del Mar, Solana Beach, Cardiff, Encinitas, Carlsbad, Oceanside, San Clemente and then from Dana Point I pushed inland off the coast to get up to Cousin Tina's house in Aliso Viejo.

I spent the rest of that day and the next with Tina, Dave and the kids in Aliso and had a lot of fun hanging out with them and getting to see Aliso Viejo and the a awesome life that they have created for themselves out there. I'm not ashamed to admit it that I am officially jealous...

On Thursday (Day 57) I left Aliso Viejo and continued my ride ride along the coast. On this day I passed through Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach before finishing the day in Venice Beach. Again, this day was a beautiful ride taking me right along the ocean mostly on biker-designated trails. When I got to Venice I stopped for dinner at a Mexican restaurant right off the beach called Cabo Cantina and while there met a really cool couple from England who had just moved to Venice with their two huskies. I had a great time talking with them about their travels and my own and drinking Dos Equis and eating the biggest portion of nachos I have ever seen.

After dinner I rode the last couple of miles to my host for the night Joshua who allowed me to camp in his back yard for the night. I remember laying down to bed that night and thinking how lush and green this grass looked and how healthy it looked. It wasn't until 5:30 a.m. that I found out the reason.... For those of you who read the blog from the last trip will remember our early battles with automated sprinklers... Well, this battle I lost decisively. I had no rain fly on and at 5:30 the sprinklers rose from the hidden bunkers and starting spraying and I got absolutely drenched. My sleeping bag, all of the clothes I was wearing, and everything inside the tent got soaked. I sprung out of my tent with what electronics I could grab and then starting the task of moving all of my stuff out of the paths of the sprinklers which was quite hard to do in such a small backyard. After about 30 minutes the sprinklers turned off and I began the process of trying to dry out all of my belongings.. Thankfully, there was a dryer outside on his patio that I was able to use and by 7:00 a.m. when I left the house I was dry again and most of my stuff was dry too.

From Venice I spent the whole day riding up the Pacific Coast Highway again and went through Santa Monica, Malibu and Ventura and finished on the Southern edge of Santa Barbara at another warmshowers host. I had a great meal with Maureen and her husband Marty and their daughter Maggie and got to hear about their sons travels that he was currently doing through Asia.

Saturday (Day 59) was supposed to be a relatively easy day as I had planned it but, it turned out to be not so easy after all. The ride between Santa Barbara and Lompoc where I was already set to stay with another warmshowers had rolling hills with 200-500 ft. climbs throughout the day and then one climb of a little over a thousand feet in 5 miles right before Lompoc and on a normal day that wouldn't have been that bad. However, I didn't factor in the winds.... On this particular day they decided to blow at 25-30 m.p.h. in my face all day which made the whole day way harder than it was and psychologically very hard to combat. Finally, after a long and hard day of riding I rode into the city limits of Lompoc and just as I did I ran over a small patch of debris and heard that awful popping sound on my front tire. I looked down and it was already almost completely deflated. Thankfully, a McDonald's was right around the corner so after a few explitives and some chicken nuggets and a hot fudge sundae I changed out the tube and rode the last few miles to my hosts house.

Again, I was blown away by the generosity and was welcomed into Carol and Tom's house and had a feast of a dinner with them and their daughter Casey. After dinner we sat around and watched The Great and Powerful Oz on their 3D TV. It almost felt like being home... Even had "the snorer" to go along with the movie like at home with big Bruce, only this time it was Carol and not Tom.

Today I rode out of Lompoc right into a climb of about 1000 ft. and then much of the rest of the day was up and down and took me through sprawling meadows and farm country. The winds came on strong in the afternoon but I was able to get through it without much trouble and made it to another warmshowers host in Cayucos, just north of Morro Bay. And as fates would have it I met up with Robert, the world traveler I'd met in Monticello, Florida, here at this host. Okay, it's not that amazing. We had been in contact and realized that we were both going up the coast together and were only a day apart from one another in terms of riding (I was one day behind Rob) so we coordinated to meet at this warmshowers host in Cayucos so that we could ride the next few days into San Francisco together.

Now, we've showered, have been fed and got some amazing views of the sunset out the windows from our hosts house and are about to pass out with a big day of riding set for tomorrow as we will be pushing into the 90-100 miles in order to get to Big Sur.