Day #1!!!: Chillin in Pine Valley, CA

Thursday March 27, 2008, 54 miles (87 km) - Total so far: 144 miles (232 km)

So today began the big trip...
My bike arrived safely in san diego at the bike shop, with the exception of a broken water bottle cage that I didn't notice until I was almost done for the day. It still works but needs to be replaced before it gets worse.

On trips like these it seems there's so many high points and occasionally a few lowpoints. If I only mentioned one or the other I think this journal would be skewed, so I will try to summarize each days notable events in order of occurance. Here goes..!

Highlights:
-Seeing the pacific and taking off my shoes and socks, doing the cliche photo with my bike in the ocean (just a little!)
-Jamba Juice!
-Warm sun and good winds
-Climbing 4500ft... There's gotta be a downhill coming somewhere after climbing that much.
-Listening to Jack Johnson and The Postal Service on the speaker of the phone while slogging up a long hill.
-Beautiful flowers and grasses in bloom due to recent rain.
-Meeting Brendan just before the turkey;(see below) he was 50 miles from completing his cross country trip in the reverse direction I am going. He had tons of great advice and it gave me inspiration seeing him so excited to be close, but also dissapointed that it was over.
-Rocketing downhill into town tonight at 25-40mph and looking over to see that I am racing a wild turkey. No kidding!
-Good food at the only restaurant in town.

Lowpoints:
-One of the dudes at the bike shop honestly trying to teach me how to properly ride a bike and shift gears. I ended that when I politely mentioned that my bike has 20000 miles on it and that it was me who rode those miles.
-The surfer who wouldn't take my first photo in the ocean because "duuuude... I gotta go grab the waves."
-San diego traffic lights; kills your groove!
-4500ft of climbing. Ok, I said this was good before, and it is, but come on... 4500ft is a lot of uphill on day 1 after not riding in so long.
-Riding on the freeway. Huge shoulder but noisy and stinky. Only 4 miles of that today.

It was a great first day!