Mount Rose

On the agenda for today was Mount Rose. Overlooking Lake Tahoe, Mount Rose tops out at 8,991 feet above sea level, which was plenty high enough to provide for some spectacular views of Tahoe. As we pulled out I walked by the front desk of the hotel and asked the smiling chap what the weather would be like.

"It's 37 degrees with a bit of chill to the wind, coldest day of the spring so far," he smiled.

What an A-hole. He obviously doesn't know that he is supposed to lie to me so that I can curse him under my breath until the sun warms me up above arctic temperatures. Some people just don't understand. So as my smile turned to a frown I walked through the front door into the numbness. I am a southern California boy, born and raised, so 37 is cold. As I mount my bike to ride out for the day I notice that the New England Contingent of riders is not even wearing jackets. I am wearing damn near everything that I own. No joke, I am wearing three layers of clothing which includes a windproof outer layer and these folks are pedaling off like we are in the freaking Bahamas. They must rub chicken fat on their bodies or have some voodoo heat dance they do because there is no possible way that they are comfortable.

Besides the weather it was another incredible day. The group, both staff and riders, are all interesting folks. We have not spent more than 12 hours in anyone place so the conversation and company of the 30 or so people make up our temporary "home". I am just soaking it all up. I am by far the youngest person here which is a great opportuity. Whenever I get to talking to anyone somehow the conversation steers into dispensing advice to me, which I am glad to oblige. I am absolutely fascinated by how different we all are and how each person's view of reality is so unique.

Well tomorrow we leave from Reno, yes, the biggest little city in the world, and head out towards Lovestock, Nevada. The weather forecast calls for a high in the low 80s, good stuff.

People Are Funny

Today we rode our bikes on Interstate 80. Yup, that's right, I-80, the freaking freeway! I have a new appreciation for freeways now after crawl from mile marker to mile marker at a blistering 10 miles per hour while semi-trucks barrel on by at 70. I had to laugh at one point because there are some times that it feels like a car will brush by a little close so I would tense up. I know it is an instinctual reaction but it would do as much good as crawling under a school desk in the event of a nuclear attack.

One thing that I have found interesting is the quirky little decorations and tchotchkes that people put on display. The picture I have posted above is some one's homemade mailbox. This was all welded together so it had to have taken some time to build. When I showed my folks the picture my dad asked, "what the hell kinda mail is he getting that he needs that big of a mailbox?" I had to agree, but when you live 45 minutes away from civilization I guess you have a crap load of free time. I think it takes special people to spend a bunch of time on this unique lawn junk, though. Maybe it's just me, but when I have some down time I don't carve a life size bear out of wood, make a smiley face mailbox, or cut my bushes into a Native American setting, complete with horses and a tipi (we passed it on a downhill and I didn't get a picture).

The man-made spectacles have been entertaining, but the natural backdrops have been just incredible. As I ride through miles of pine trees stretching to the sky I can look to the side and see nothing but unfettered, unadulterated forests. As we crest the peak of each mountain the trees thin out and give way to spectacular aerial views of the lakes or canyons below.

We climbed quite a bit today and every turn has it's own surprise. Today as I was pedaling up the Donner Pass I saw a cyclist up ahead in the distance that was not from our group. I eventually caught up with him and struck up the ol' cycling conversation. The usual, "hey were ya riding to? Where you coming from?" chit chat. This bloke had seen too many days in the sun, however, and was what I like to refer to as "baked". As I pulled up I gave a friendly, "hey there" and asked him where was headed. He replied snappily with a, "why the f@#* do you want to know?" My first reaction was to laugh, and I did, to which he gave me a glare and asked, "what's funny?" I realized that he was agitated by my reaction so I tried to change the subject, you know the old Jedi mind trick, if I don't acknowledge his craziness, then maybe he will forget he's crazy, so I came back with, "we're riding across America. Are there bears here?" I have found that making a disjointed statement/question usually buys a little time because said crazy needs a minute to process what just happened, it's like the verbal switcharoo. Anyway, he ended up telling me his story about how he rode to Texas once and he was on his way to Lake Tahoe. It was a truly awkward scenario, but it ended fine. He turned out to be a nice guy, I must have interrupted the voices in his head. Next time I'll be more polite.

Tomorrow we ride into the land of debauchery; Nevada. We will be staying not too far from the casinos and as my buddy Norbert put it, "someones gotta win at the casinos, might as well be me."

Thinking Time

I was eating dinner last night at a buffet and as I was in line piling high my sixth plate of food (I'm a sampler, what can I do?) a lady noticed my America by Bicycle t-shirt and struck up a conversation. After I convinced her that we really do ride our bikes she asked, "so what do you think about for 6 hours a day riding your bike?" I gave her the standard answer of, "well, you know, gee golly, I just love riding my bike because the, blah, blah, blah...", but I thought more about what I think about when I ride.

The range of thoughts is pretty narrow. "Pedal...turn left...pedal...shift gears...drink water...man I gotta pee but I don't wanta stop..stop sign...how big of a fine is it to pee in public?..guy walking dog...did he give me a weird look?..does he want a piece of me?..thats right, he better look the other way...sweet a bathroom...hey look, an eagle...that would be cool to fly...I wonder if you can ride an eagle like a horse...horses can't fly...that would be cool to fly..."

Sometimes I try to make up stupid jokes. I often think of who the first person was to tell a joke for the first time. I took a comedic world literature class and the professor mentioned something that sparked this thought, he said, "the funniest person that ever lived has most likely been long forgotten because they probably couldn't write, so we have no record of him or her." None of my jokes are any good. When I am riding up in the mountains, far away from people, sometimes I talk to the squirrels or the trees. I guess I am not selling the beauty of bicycle riding.

Tomorrow we will be riding over the Donner Pass and in honor of that I will leave you with the only cannibal joke I know.
"Two cannibals are eating a comedian and one cannibal stops, wrinkles his nose, then turns to the other cannibal and asks, 'does this taste funny to you?'"

JELLY BELLY!!!!

Who doesn't love jelly beans? I actually don't care for them, but I took a little detour from our jaunt between Vallejo and Sacramento to take the Jelly Belly factory tour. Walking into the Jelly Belly factory lobby is like walking into a tie-dye t-shirt. All the colors of the rainbow are on display with little jelly bean artwork covering every square inch of available space. When you walk into the lobby right there on the wall is a huge jelly bean portrait of the Great Communicator himself, Ronald Reagan. You would have thought our fortieth president was the one who invented the damn jelly bean, the guy is all over the place. The portraits of him are hilarious too, they have presidential Ron, "Win One for the Gipper" Ron, senile Ron, they got 'em all. So after you pass all of the creepy pictures of president Reagan you are in the lobby/gift shop/sample area. This is where you can buy a Jelly Belly helicopter hat if you please. The tour guide corralled us in to take the free tour and we were off. The tour was 45 minutes and, not to be ungrateful, they could have done it in 10. The tour takes you around the catwalk above their manufacturing facility which is pretty neat, getting to see all of the automation as well as seeing 80 million jelly beans out on racks waiting to be packaged. If you are wondering how many jelly beans 80 million really is, think of a 3 car garage filled from top to bottom with jelly beans, or just think of a lot of jelly beans and double that thought.

After the Jelly Belly factory it was all pretty smooth sailing into Sacramento. I got to be a part of the ride again today so I rode my office through Northern California's farmland to our capitol. I must say that riding a bicycle is a much different way of seeing things. Every person on this ride seems to really want to experience everything which has been a great experience for me. We stop in nearly every town to get water or a snack and chat for a second with the locals. Nearly all of them have the same "don't you know you can drive or fly across country now?!?" reaction, but we all laugh, hop on our bikes and keep pedaling on. You can't hear the wind whip through the what fields in a car. This is a rare opportunity where I get to combine two things that I love; biking and traveling.

To all of you who plan on one day visiting the Jelly Belly factory, take a good look at all of the creepy looking jelly bean cartoon guys they have painted everywhere. They have these eyes that you can feel judging you and these smug smiles. They just think they're better than you...smug little jelly bastards...

Another Day at the Office

My office for the day.

Anyone who has been on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland knows that "Dead men tell no tales", well people who are still living tell amazing tales. Ok, now that we got that terrible segue over and done with...well, anyway, today was the first day of riding and was my day to work from the bicycle. We covered 75 miles from San Francisco to beautiful Vallejo, California.

When I first signed up to work for this ride I wondered what kind of people I would meet. I obviously worried about having some Alpha dog barking orders at me, but every single person on this ride is easy-going and tells a great story. One of the riders, a man named Jack, is on his third bicycle ride across America and has even walked across America. He is like a real life Forrest Gump, except Jack isn't slow in the head.

Tonight I drove one of our vans with about 10 of the riders over to where we were having dinner and just listening to all the different accents each telling different stories. Anyway, I am really tired so I am sorry that this entry is more informative than entertaining, but, hey, they can't all be winners. I wish there was more to say but I am a little tired. Some of the highlights of today were: riding over the Golden Gate Bridge, riding past San Quentin State Prison, and, just a little down the road, the National Headquarters for training Seeing Eye Dogs, as well as eating lemon flavored cookies (those little lemon cookies are so refreshingly delicious). Tomorrow we ride to Sacramento with a short stop at the Jelly Belly factory so, until then...

Free Breakfast Travel Tip

Free breakfast is probably the best thing that Man has invented. As I walk up to the breakfast buffet I look around and assess the situation, sizing up the competition. Most people utilize the free breakfast in the same manner: eat a bowl of cereal or have a pastry with a cup of either orange juice or coffee the maybe score a banana for the road...amateurs. I realized early on that if you stuff yourself with a ridiculous amount of free food then you can last for three, maybe four hours longer than the free breakfast "amateurs". If you play your cards right you might be able to make it the whole day without having to pay for a meal. Now, there are the side effects so remember that this travel tip is only for those who are unbelievably cheap and slightly stupid.

Day One...

Today we had a little bit of a free day. A guy on our staff has a friend that works at Alcatraz so we moseyed on over to pier 33 and grabbed a ferry ride to The Rock. We took the normal tour, which is pretty interesting. I did not know that a Native American group occupied Alcatraz for about 19 months between 1969 and 1971. Bryan, our super secret tour guide, gave us a bunch of interesting tidbits about the mysterious island. He gave us a play by play of the Anglin brother's and Frank Morris' escape in 1962, as well as a peek at the infirmary where we were able to go into Robert Stroud's cell in the psychiatric ward (Robert Stroud was the "Birdman" of Alcatraz although he never had any birds at Alcatraz, he had birds at Leavenworth). All in all the tour was pretty cool but I must say that Alcatraz is in terrible shape, it's deteriorating fast.

Well tomorrow I have a rough day of free breakfast, building bikes, and reading a book or something, we shall see.