Day 22

Happy Birthday Mike! Thanks for all the encouragement through all those rainy days!

So today I'm in Santa Cruz. The past three days have been absolutely awesome. Sunny and warmer and DRY!!! So so good for south of here I hear. Fires may become my next obstacle. I'm checking into road closures tonight. Hopefully the weather will break and all will be passable by the time I get down there sometime next week.

So the past couple of days I've had that sun and I've put it to good use making my way down through San Fransisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge. That was awesome! The roads in Marin Co (famous for mtn biking) before the bridge were awesome too. Curves that were so much fun on the bike. Made me miss my motorcycle though. I will come back for sure just to do that road. The views of the coast were very cool too.

Today from SF to Santa Cruz seemed flatter for the most part with a few big climbs. There was a side wind early but it switched later to no wind or a bit of a tail wind. There was one section of road that took me back to being a kid and when I fell in love with bikes. Brand new pavement, a heavy tail wind and nearly flat. Yikes! Cruising along at 26 mph effortlessly! The coolest part is that when the wind blows hard enough behind you there is NO wind in your ears. You hear nothing except the sound of your bicycle working. In fact I noticed a couple little sounds on mine that I have not been able to hear due to the rain and headwinds over the past couple of weeks. Nothing big, just some fine tuning!

I'm happy to be finding my way through these big cities okay. Big cities always stress me a little. The maps are doing their job pretty well.

Okay everyone...huff and puff and blow that fire out for me!