i'm a cowboy, on a trek horse I ride

Finally out of California, time to get down ta bidness. Isabel and I parted ways 3 days ago in Indio, so I'm back on my own. My first day out I did about 50 miles which I'm trying to make my new daily distance, its much easier biking through the desert, its been so flat. The towns are getting much farther apart, which keeps me motivated to do longer days.

I spend the first night out in a little town called desert center, even the title sounds like a nicer way of saying 'middle of nowhere'. it consisted of 2 roads, a diner, and a corner store. It was like a ghost town, there were abandoned markets and gas stations and train cars all around the diner. I really regretted not having a camera, I really need to pick one up. The woman at the diner told me I could sleep in the 24 hour post office thing but I declined and found a little place off the road to set up camp.

Made it just past the Arizona border yesterday, and got my first flat tire. After patching it up I found a place to camp under a tree along the freeway. I'm getting kicked off the computer so I'm off

3 Martini Ranch

Its been a while since i posted, i was lingering on the coast for a bit. I spent a week in ocean beach in san diego to see Michael and crash with him and his friend Travis at their friends' place like 3 blocks from the beach, mostly bummed around town. Isabel flew out last thursday and we met up in downtown san diego, we spent 2 nights there and saw the zoo which was enormous, the zoo is in this huge park that feels like a giant forest in the middle of the city. shit was tight.

we got rained out as we were leaving but weathered the storm til' it got really bad and we had to set up camp by the side of the road. We spent 2 nights at the san elijo state beach campsite and enjoyed the beach before we began heading east. The scenery east of san diego has been beautiful, we've been biking through mountains and valleys since we left.

HUGE miscommunication yesterday, we stopped to take a rest before getting on the highway and i forgot my banjo when we headed out. i realized i forgot it after about 20 minutes and turned around, i yelled the situation accross the street to isabel when i passed her but she couldn't hear me and thought i was telling her we went the wrong way so she turned around and went the other direction for a few hours. my bad big time. she decided to just catch a bus to somewhere near joshua tree and i'm just going to meet her there when i get there, so i guess it could be worse.

had a great ride today, it was pretty flat then ended with a 13 mile down a mountain in the anza borega state park, which brought me back to the desert. I really need to get a camera, words can't do justice to how beautiful it is here and i'm no writer. I'm in borego springs now, its a little town in the middle of the state park surrounded by mountains. I stopped at a hardware store and some guy offered me a pop out tent thinking i was buying a tarp to use as a tent. He brought me to his ranch to check it out and offered me to stay in his guest house. I got a hot shower and i get to do my laundry for the first time since I was in pasadena.

The ranch is beautiful, everything is very artistically arranged, the owner seems like a really cool guy. and there's peacocks here!

well i'm off to get some free dinner and clean clothes. Tomorrow I'm off to the salton sea, then from there to joshua tree. peace out


*update* hanging around borego springs another day, had a wonderful evening, did a duet of loveshack at this karaoke place next door, had a few beers, thc pills which i didnt even know existed and watched the spy who shagged me. isabel is catching a bus down here today and we're spending another night at the ranch.

coasting along

its been a while since i wrote in this due to my travel break in los angeles with Anabel. to sum that up we ate tons of food, biked around, saw some movies, spent too much money, caught up with kayla and ceci, and ate more food. It was a sweet time but made me realize how much I miss Anabel.

I left los angeles saturday morning going south, I was planning to camp out at the crystal cove state beach but while biking through a woman yelled out "do you have a place to sleep tonight?" well I did, but hot showers and beds always beat bushes so i took her up on the offer. She and her husband had just biked around cuba and had much to share about what its like. I had a delicious dinner and then they took me out to a jazz concert.

I left sunday and had a pretty slow day, its really hard biking along the coast without getting distracted and wanting to stop at every beach. I stopped a little early at the san onofre state beach to camp and went to a lot of trouble finding a hidden camping spot off the trail alongside some cliffs, only to realize the next morning there was a campsite about 100 yards ahead and that they don't really enforce payment for camping.

I went dumpster diving for the first time today behind a health food store, it was a tad dissapointing, i found a bunch of horse radish and I got pretty excited about some yogurt until I smelled it. better luck next time I suppose.

Well I'm off to the torrey pines state reserve to camp for the night, then to san diego to see my brother. From there I'll be starting cross country, its going to be difficult to leave the coast, but exciting to see what the rest of the country has to offer.

Hello coast line

After camping in a sketchy spot by the st ana bike trail last night we made it to the coast within a half hour of waking up, my first view of the pacific coast! Its beautiful and so nice out, I can't believe what they call winter over here. We laid out bikes in the sand and had breakfast on the beach, watched some dolphins dip in and out of the ocean, and laughed at some seagulls.

The past few days have been awesome, the guy that took us in ended up being a hardcore cross country coach, one of his sons was Ryan Hall, Beijing olympic runner, hollllaa. We got tons of mexican food for dinner while he talked about running and his sons and sent us off the next morning with a box of energy bars and directions to the st ana river trail.

After some uphill biking by big bear lake we had a downhill for about 25 miles on this crazy beautiful mountain road. The traffic was terrrifying but the views were amazing. Plus we found a full box of cookies and 2 giant cans of beer by the side of the road, I've never been so excited about free food.

We're on our way to crystal cove state park, a park by the beach to take an easy day of hanging out before we part ways tomorrow. I'm gonna miss travelling with Jordan, but I know this is only the beginning of a really great trip.

I head into L.A. sometime this weekend depending on if I can find a place to stay, i just signed up on couch surfing and warm showers though. Week in the city with Anabel! so excited! I can't wait to catch up with Kayla and hear all about Ceci's south American adventure.

thats all for now

Day 3 of bicycle fun!

I'm writing this from the big bear city library. The first chunk of the day as spent going up a mountain in the national forest, I fell behind Jordan pretty early in the day but met up with him at the top relieved to hear that he had also taken numerous stops and had only waited about 15 minutes. There was snow at the top! which is only amazing after being in the desert for the past few weeks. While waiting for me Jordan met some jogger guy with his dog that offered us his house for sleeping/showering/eating home cooked meals. word! I think I smell like balls already.

big bear city is a rustic small town, filled with cabins and surrounded by national forest and the first lake I've seen in california. very picturesque

The trip has been awesome so far, spent the first night out in saw tooth canyon, a bunch of jagged rock formations in the middle of nowhere, some fun climbs and incredible views of the desert. We started out with 2 miles of fairly steep downhill into luscerne valley, the last town on the desert side of the mountains, tres tiny. After stocking up in the one grocery/hardware store we made our way up the steady incline leading into the mountain range. We didnt make it too far and stopped a little ways short of the base of the mountain, camping below some trees (also a new sight since being in the desert).


I'm off to a hot shower and meal

Last day on aquarius

Its my last morning on the ranch, I'm going to miss this place and everybody here. Especially the animals, shakti, the kitten is sitting on my lap right now cleaning herself. The dogs have been restlessly howling and whining since last night, like they know that their primary walker is leaving. I've learned so much since I've been here, I just hope I retain it all.

It was fun spending the holidays here, we had a huge vegan meal on christmas with the few people still here. I spent new years day hiking from the ranch out to mt general with 2 other interns, there was an old mine shaft in the mountain that we checked out then had lunch on the top.

I leave today at 10:00 with my trailer mate Jordan, we're biking together for a few days down to the san bernadino national forest to camp out, then we part ways, he's off to san diego and I'll be heading to L.A. to spend the week with Anabel and visiting Kayla and Ceci.

I'm running a bit late and should start packing things onto my bike,

Goodbye aquarius ranch

Aquarius ranch

This thursday I will have been on aquarius ranch for 2 weeks although it seems much longer. The ranch is in Hinkley California, a small town northeast of los angelas in the mojave desert, the ranch is a oasis of sustainable living in a meth lab riddled town. We have one neighbor, besides that you can turn around and see miles and miles of desert framed by distant moutnains. I've never seen so much sky. Everything that the landscape lacks in diversity it makes up for 10 fold in vastness and overwhelming beauty.

The ranch welcomes you with half of a giant boat left here by previous owners with a beautiful mural done by past wwoofers. There are 9 dogs here, one of them added since I've been here picked up from the side of the road. I've never seen how dogs socialize in a pack and I'm learning a lot. There is a hierarchy, the dogs are still wary of accepting the new dog and the puppies are often dominated by the other dogs to show them who is control. I find it fascinating watching the interatctions, the cats as well which there are 10 of. There are 4 horses and a bunch of chickens geese and ducks.

The interns are housed in various trailers around the property, I'm rooming with one who arrived 2 days ago, coincedentally he is also 20, in the middle of a long distance bike trip, and brought his mandolin. One intern left today putting it down to 4 of us, everyone is very laid back, friendly, open, and interesting. I'm learning much more here than I ever felt I have in 2 weeks of school.

The owner of the ranch is a 65 year old very spiritual woman named Penny Harper, shes very hard of hearing and can be slightly spacy but is an amazing woman over all. She is a firm believer in aliens, more specifically andromedans who she claims to have regular contact with.

We spent the first week of my time here working on a sand bag dome, which is exactle what it sounds like, a dome made of coiled sand bags mixed with some cement and fitted together with barbed wire in between bags. The technology is simple but the outcome is a bullet proof, earthquake proof, weather proof dome that lasts forever, Penny hopes to have as many built as possible for whatever may happen in 2012 (her belief being that the current system will fall apart, people will be deprived of energy for some time until the andromedans share there free energy machines and we enter into a new paradigm of peace and love). Our sandbag consultant intern has taken a 2 week holiday though so we've been doing basic gardening and ranch maintenance the past few days.

There's so much more I could go on about but I've probably already lost the attention of the few people that might actually read this.

I miss the cape but felt I was getting into a real funk and feeling very stagnant, staying on the ranch has rejuvinated me in so many ways, and has given me a very good feeling about the rest of my trip. I am on the ranch until January, then I head south for L.A., after that who knows.
I'm going to try to write in this atleast once a week