How am I going to get everything in one short letter!
First, the rains have been banished from southern California, whoopee! We made a nice sunny ride to the Hearst Castle and beyond. The beyond was to the beaches to see the elephant seals. The gals and their pups are stretched out on the beach, real lazybones. The bulls are sloshing back and fourth in the surf. Once-in-a-while one of them will rare back and lift his tail flippers out of the water at the same time. Then this guttural sound issues from deep in his throat. To me it sounds just like a sewer pipe clearing its throat.
We then hurried back to the San Simian State Park Campground and broke camp to meet the noon checkout deadline. We drove to Santa Maria and checked into the only RV park in town. Right next to the local theme park. It has put-put golf, grand-prix cars and laser tag. The park played the same pseudo Middle Eastern music theme over and over until closing at eleven. It started up promptly at eleven the next morning, and we moved out in favor of a Kmart parking lot. Anything to preserve our sanity.
Gary has a long time friend and bicycle mentor that lives in Santa Maria. Dr. Bill Patterson is a retired professor at Cal Poly in San Louis Obispo. Now I know many of you think that our tandem is strange. Well I am here to tell you that Bill is one of my bicycle mentors, and his WYMS tandem was the inspiration for our Green Dragon tandem. Not only that, Bill couldn’t wait to see my version of the WYMS, so he drove over to the RV park and in the dark Bill and I rode around the campground. Bill was able to ride the Green Dragon on his first try. I got to ride on the back seat, the first time ever. We were tearing around the campground roadway and on the backside it was dark as the inside of a coal bin. I finally had to make Bill stop and let me rig the headlight so we could see the speed bumps.
Next day, after we parked at the Kmart, Judy and I rode over to Bill and Diane’s home a couple blocks away. They have five tandems and several single person recumbents and regular bicycles. One of the recumbent tandems is an M-5 from Holland. Judy and I did manage to ride it, but it was not pretty. It is about twelve feet long, and it can turn on a dime and leave you $2.90 in debt. It is better to go around the block. I think the Alpine motor home has a shorter turning radius! Other than a couple phone calls and e-mails over the years this is the first face-to-face meeting with these wonderful people. We spent the afternoon and evening getting acquainted and indulging in a fantastic steak dinner in Guadalupe California. One of the house specialties was Rocky Mountain Oysters. I tell you that was the strangest tasting seafood I ever did eat.
Friday morning we made our way across highway 166 to Bakersfield. Highway 101 is blocked by a terrible landslide in La Conchita near Ventura California, so all of the 101 traffic was crossing over to I-5 on highway 166. The rest of our drive was more restful until we reached Victorville during the 5pm rush hour. We arrived at the Mojave Narrows Regional Park after dark, but were still able to check into a campsite. I have a wonderful copilot. Judy with her little radio just does a super job backing me into these sites. We will explore tomorrow, but we think we have found a real gem of a park. It has a lake for our canoe and the bicycling looks like it will be good too. We will stay at least a couple days.
I don’t know how we could have any more fun, but we are working on it.
Lots of Love from Gary and Judy
P.S. Please welcome Bill and Diane to our e-mail log.
