Phew

My "stupendously busy" (did I really say that?) work days are over, and now I'm packing my days with other things. A couple of weeks ago, I spent the night up in Lakeport, got up with the sun, shoved my tent in my trunk and hopped on my bike. The night before I'd spent with some old friends drinking wine and eating stuffed eggplant (it tastes better than it sounds), and having uncomfortable conversations. I was happy to be going for a ride, and a little disappointed that I didn't turn on the news that night. As it turns out, the Northern California inferno had started the day before and the smoke started off bad and got worse. The farther I went south, the worse it got. But it's a circle (the essence of a lake, really), so once I got about half way around, it didn't make sense to go back.

When I started out, I realized I'd forgotten my music, so I was looking at 70 miles of being alone with my thoughts. A dangerous proposition. Luckily, though, the evening was so uncomfortable that I'd forgotten to ask for some breakfast I could bring with me, I just found solace in my tent, and tried to sleep.



Sunrise was lovely, and all the more colorful for the thick, smoky haze.

When I got up (5 hours later -- ouch!), I was just interested in packing up and hitting the road in time to see the sunrise, but after about 10 miles, I remembered that I hadn't eaten. Then again at 11 miles, 12, 13 . . . and pretty soon, I was just thinking about how I hadn't eaten, that it was 6.30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, that I was in between one tiny town and another tiny town, and that no rational convenience store guy who was probably suffering from a pretty serious hangover from some seriously cheap beer would be up to sell some sweaty, wheezing cyclist a clif bar. But at least I didn't have to think about my life and the state of the world.




This may seem comically obvious, but the sun rises pretty fast. I had envisioned having this gorgeous sunrise-ride where it would be cool and quiet and the only sounds would be those morning birds and the water lapping at the shore. First, the 'sunrise' part of the ride lasted only about 15 minutes. Second, it gets hot remarkably fast around these parts. And third, there's not really a road that circumnavigates (that's a GRE word) the lake -- so for parts of the ride, I had lovely views of mobile home parks, pink flamingos, and a remarkable amount of construction.

Perhaps some of you have heard of the Konocti Casino? No? Konocti Resort and Spa? No? Well, here's a photo of the spa:


Konocti Harbor? I had heard of all these things. What I did not know about was Mount Konocti -- the [inactive] volcano. Yeah -- that's a 4299 ft mountain.

That photo of the mountain is not mine -- from across the lake, I couldn't see the mountain due to the smoke. And while I was climbing it, I wasn't thinking about taking a friggin' picture. When I got home, I was telling an NCAC buddy about the ride, and he said, "So you went up that hill?" And suddenly I remembered that one of the hardest hills on NCAC '07 was around the lake -- the hill is shaped like a V -- you go straight down, so fast you can barely see what's coming, but whoooo-boy -- what's coming is a hill that goes straight up. It's not very long, but it's steep. I had to get off my bike with about 10 yards to go because it was too steep. I guess I need to do some more hill training.





The day got warm, and the hills kept coming, and my tummy kept grumbling. Not to worry, however. I got to South Lake or the city of Clearlake or something and it was late enough in the morning that I knew there had to be something to eat. Suddenly I saw a big sign at the stop light coming up, and more and more people.





And here -- a food-desert Oasis:

Okay, okay. I wasn't desperate enough to eat at McDonalds. Across the parking lot, there was a Ray's Food Place. At least that's what I thought it said. I didn't get a photo, but in retrospect, I think it was actually called, "Ray's Rude Place." What a bunch of punks. But those punks had bananas and bagels and ice for my water bottles.

The rest of the ride was painful due to the smoke, but it was also rather gorgeous and I was happy to be out there.

There were a lot of these 'check your speed' mechanisms, and it took me about 15 tries, but I got a photo of one as it was getting my speed -- considering I had to slow down, get my camera out, and take the picture, I must have been cruising along pretty good to register 21 mph.


I didn't realize I was just going to whine about this ride. It was actually pretty good. Just a rough weekend all around.