For serious, I went to the bathroom about 20 times today. I drank so much. Its important.
I love camping. I haven’t camped out in like 9 years. When I’m at home, I hate waking up, but there’s something about waking up in a tent at 5am in a sleeping bag that exhilarates me. James, my tent-mate isn’t really “down” with my GOOD MORNING attitude. But, he’ll just have to deal. Some people actually do the ride, raise the money, but stay in hotels along the way. We call that "The Princess Tour." I'm sure its not as fun though.
This is what our tent city looks like:
To put icing on the cake of waking up in a tent, is that my breakfast is waiting for me. Just get in line, and then pile a mess of scrambled eggs on my plate. I have been eating like a horse for the past four days. I’m not kidding. I knew I was going to look forward to the food, and I’m not disappointed. Last night I flipped out (in a good way) because the corn muffins were back. I love those.
This is what dinner looks like. You can sit next to anyone, and most likely they’ll be friendly:
Today at meals and at rest stops, I ate:
A truckload of scrambled eggs and spinach
Four oranges
Three bananas
Five cliff bars
One honkin’ turkey sandwich
Three bags of Ritz Bitz cheese cracker snacks
6,000,000,000 gallons of Gatorade (margin of error +/- 5 gallons)
A field of salad
Almost a whole chicken
A vat of rice.
And I’m still hungry.
So while yesterday I talked about how we all support each other here, there is a certain amount of Do-It-Yourself-ness that I like. Most of it revolves around the schedule. Camp services (food, showers, camp store, massage, sports medicine, etc) are only open for a certain amount of time each day. Rest stops are only open until a certain time, so you have to plan your riding accordingly. I’m a slow rider, I typically awake at 5am, out on the road at 7 or earlier. I know that on a day like today (we rode 96 miles, with three of our steepest climbs on the route) that its going to take me ALL DAY. Some riders start at 6:30am and then are done at 1pm (this is true) because they are amazing athletes, me on the other hand, not so much. The route CLOSES at 7pm, which means if you’re still out on the road, you get swept up by the sweep cars. Today I rolled in around 6:50pm. What I sort of miss out on is a bit of a camp atmosphere, because I show up late. I’d LOVE to hang around and cheer on other riders, but I guess that’ll happen more next year.
This is what it looks like at bike parking when I show up, yeah lots of other bikes.
But it is ABSOLUTELY exhilarating to pull in to camp after a long day on my bike. Today I rolled in to our camp at Santa Maria and I could hear the other bikers and roadies cheering almost half a mile away. AND NOW THE PART WHERE I ALMOST CRY AT THE END OF THE DAY: Turning the corner right before the last stretch headed to camp, there was this little girl who lived in the neighborhood, just out cheering on the riders and dancing in the sun, she looked up at me as I passed by and I just heard a little voice say “good job” and I almost completely lost it right there.
So a wonderful day, to be honest, I’m concentrating on my riding, or getting to the next rest stop or just being completely overjoyed by the scenery, that I never really know where exactly I am throughout the day, but it feels real good to be there.
Oh yeah, this happened today too:
Goodnight from (I'm sure of this) Santa Maria, California
Days Remaining: 3
Miles To Los Angeles: 200
Legs: Powered by Corn Muffins and Gatorade
wow that's a lot of Gatorade!
-Dave
http://hubpages.com/hub/Gatorade_Coupon
Posted by: Dave | June 24, 2007 at 07:11 AM