Day 9: California is a fine place to live—if you happen to be an orange.

90.34 mi 43.0 max 7:08.52 12.6 avg

The days keep getting tougher. I gave a lot on day 7, and I think that I have not recovered yet. Today, our highest climb went to 1200’, with 400’ “rollers.” We did cross into California today. Shortly after, I passed by Marie, who had gotten her first flat. Steve & I stopped while Chris talked her through it – I lost a lot of time there. My other big loss of time happened when I took a detour to get sand for Silas, just outside of Brookings, OR.

There are lots of disgruntled people. The problem is that we just don’t have enough time/daylight. Plus, we have kitchen duties in camp. We can’t play around in town or have long lunches. When I get into camp, I have to hurry to set up camp and shower. Nothing ever dries – that’s probably my biggest complaint – and it’s mostly because it just doesn’t have enough time to sit out in the sun. But I’ve also learned that I love it when it’s dry, like in Jackson.

I kept the tandem company by singing The Walk of Shame as we grunted up the hill. In addition to being a tough hill (rising 1200' from sea level), the traffic was pretty busy, and it included tractor trailers and the omnipresent RVs - mansions on wheels.

This entry will probably need to be rewritten since it is after 10:30 and I am a total spaceshot right now.

Oh, yeah, and my camera hit the ground today and died. My bike next to redwood was its last picture. Alan's going to take a look at it, but he doesn't hold out much hope for being able to fix it.

I don't mind the long difficult days. If I wanted the Tour de Wimps, that's the one I'd sign up for. If this were supposed to be an easy trip, then ANYONE could do it. I like picking out something challenging...and then accomplishing it. Besides, I think that I'd miss out on a lot of donors if I said I was going from Astoria to Brookings in 30 days.