SLO Transit gets Double Deckers
SLO Transit just got some really nice looking double decker buses and they are BEASTS. Can’t wait to ride one!
Free Produce!
Last Friday night I was hanging out at The Establishment when some random mid-20’s guy comes into the den and asks us if we want some free produce! Obbbbviously we all ran outside and this guy started unloading CRATES of food. Turns out he was with the Cal Poly Organic Farm and because they just cancelled there CSA program for some reason, they have been having wayyy to much produce. So, after SLO farmers market and then Avila Farmers Market on Friday, this guy just gets to drive around his van full of surplus produce and give it away!! We called him the Vegetable Santa. So The Establishment took a whole wheelbarrow worth of stuff and I filled up my shirt and walked back to the house. I got some TOmatoes, POtatoes, Bellpeppers, Onions, and a Cucumber!
Then, yesterday, I went slacklining at Meadow Park with Greg-oreo and Gabe and I walked over to check out the new Community Garden that they just finished this summer. I was just walking through looking at all the things people are growing when some guy watering his plants asked me if I wanted any lettuce. Obbbbviously I said yes and he just picked a whole bunch of lettuce for me right there. We got talking and he actually lives on Upham too near Broad and he has seen Little Red! Yessss so good!
Community Cabinet: Success
I re-did the living room entertainment center a week ago and removed the big cabinet thing that housed all of the electronics. At first I was just going to cut it up and use it for scrap wood but I decided to keep it on the porch a couple days and figure out something better to do with it. I decided to try another experiment.
I painted it yellow, dug a small hole in the very front of the front yard, and buried it in the ground about 6 inches. It sits right up against the sidewalk so anyone walking by can easily access it. Then I screwed in a whiteboard on the side and wrote the following:
I put in some onions and a cucumber that I got for free to start it off. The idea is that anything that I don’t want or have too much of, I can put in there and perhaps get something in return. And also anyone in the neighborhood who walks by the cabinet can get rid of stuff and find free stuff too.
Is it…..
An elaborate scheme to get free stuff: Yes
Super awesome: Yes
Working: HELL YES
So this is what it looks like and what I put in. I want to plant some flowers in the bottom area where the dirt is!
An hour or so after I put in the produce, I also put in some sandollars, some shells, two glass candle holders, and some 3D glasses. Within 20 minutes, a kid came up and took a couple of sandollars!
Then later that night, the new neighbors in the Egyptian House (who moved in the day before) came over and took the cucumber and left a hardboiled egg HEAAA!!! And they wrote on the whiteboard “Took the cucumber and left an egg at 9:00pm. Eat soooon! -From the new neighbors”
Then a little later that night, Aaron came over so we could go downtown and traverse (climb) the wall at the mission. But first we went over to the Egyptian House to introduce ourselves to the new neighbors, The Egyptians. Two girls have moved in so far, Olga and Amanda and they had two friends over that night. We took a tour of their house (which I had never been in before) and we invited them to come climbing but they were still trying to set up their house and passed. But they seem really nice and cool (one of them rides a Vespa) Legit!
Anyways! The last couple of days the cabinet has been goin’ off. I put in this GIANT squash that I bought at farmers for a QUARTER (yea, 25 cents) and someone took that within a day. I wrote this: “Left a GIANT squash. I don’t know if it is better to eat or better as a conversation piece!” This is how big the squash was: What a joke!
Then somebody put in a bag full of DVD’s. They were volumes 4-8 of a series called Wholphin which has the tagline: “DVD Magazine of rare and unseen short films”. Hahaha so we watched some of them tonight. Some were good, some were really really bad HEAA!! Titles we watched included:
John “Kung Fu” Wang
Drunk Bees
Drums as Targets
Giant Paper Airplanes
House Hunting
World Record-Setting, One-Handed, Blindfolded Rubik’s Cube Champs
Tree-Hanging: No-Frills Workout improves your head lock
Spend a day with the Sudan Liberation Army
Chonto
Madame Tutli-Putli
and my favorite: Death To The Tinman
Also, tonight while watching the films, people put in a really nice electric shaver, a bunch of clothes hangars (which Aaron really needed and took), a foam airplane commemorating 9-11, and some packets of kool-aid! And earlier today somebody put in part of an astronomy set! Pretty much the Community Cabinet is a huge success. Its super fun to go out and see whats inside because the inventory and the messages on the whiteboard change so often!
O and I almost forgot, somebody also put in a super nice teal beanie tonight which I took and replaced with a brand new Volcom wallet I have had for years and never used HEAA! Too Legit.
321 Miles to Home Day 7
I woke up around 7:00am on Avalon, walked back to the road and then biked down the hill down to the town and harbor. I had an omelette and orange juice for breakfast at a little diner and then went and bought another disposable camera because I ran out of film. And the one I bought is a re-loadable waterproof one too!Then I went and got my ferry ticket for 9:45. I waited around on the little grass area and got bored so I took these two test photos. Some Japanese tourists were watching me and laughing during the second one HEAA!
Then I got on the ferry on my way to Dana Point and took these photos while leaving Avalon:
This is where I slept: (the big tree right above the arrow is the tree with the swing on it)
Avalon in the distance:
Coming into Dana Point:
Then I got off the ferry and continued biking. I went through the rest of Dana Point and then through San Clemente. Here I am at the path to go down to Trestles:
Then I biked through all of the campgrounds, and then alongside the freeway and it was SO HOT. And the path was really long and really straight and I could see mirages like crazy:
I biked under the freeway through a tunnel, then I made it to the Camp Pendelton entrance and rode through the whole thing. I passed a couple military installations and also a bunch of spots on the road with signs that read “Tank Crossing” HEAA! Then I got spit out at the very end of Oceanside! I went back across the freeway and made it back to the ocean where I stopped and ate a little bit:
Then I continued on through Oceanside partly on the beachfront roads and partly on the rail trails. Then I finally made it to Coldstone which was familiar territory to bike in. I biked on the 101 through the rest of Oceanside, past the power plant in Carlsbad, and then…. while I was going past the Carlsbad Campgrounds, my pedals locked up! I was still coasting but I couldn’t use the reverse pedal brakes or pedal forward! Yea, Course the bike breaks 5 miles away HEAAAA!
I figured it was the coaster brake hub because they are prone to failing where all of the sudden the brakes don’t work anymore and it sort of locks up. But there wasn’t anything I would be able to do on the road so I just stood on the pedal really hard and forced it to turn over. And it did turn, it was just really, really hard to do it. So I was able to coast/occasionally pedal all the way to the Ponto parking lot, then I charged up the hill and by doing that, (which was extremely tiring because it was worse than pedaling with the brakes on) I sort of loosened the resistance a little bit. So it was easier to pedal, but still bad.
But I stopped and took these photos as I finally made it back to LEUCADIA!!!!
Then I went up La Costa Ave, through the crooks, down Hymettus, and finally coasted down the driveway. 321 Miles To Home. Done.
Day 7’s Route:
Original Overall Route:
Actual Overall Route:
321 Miles to Home Day 6
The next morning I left Donald’s house. I biked through the rest of Torrance on E. Sepulveda on my way to Long Beach. I went over a bridge with a bunch of railroad tracks below me (20+ tracks), biked past a BP oil refinery (what a joke), and then finally made it the LA river (another joke). It was surprised though when I got there because there was actually a really nice bike path that paralleled the river until Long Beach. However, after riding along for just a minute or so, I got a flat on my rear tire. It was a medium leaker so I was able to pump it up and ride for about 5 minutes until it went flat again. Luckily, the bike trail along the river was flat and smooth and I had a tailwind. I had to stop 4 times and pump it up until I made it to Long Beach. Luckily, from Donald’s house, it was less than 15 miles to Long Beach where I stopped right in front of the Catalina Express station!
So I decided to hop on the ferry and take it to Catalina Island HEAA! I waited in the station for about an hour and a half and then the ferry ride took another 1.5 hours. I got off the boat at Avalon, went and bought a patch kit for my bike, and then sat by the waters edge on a lawn eating dinner and repairing my tube. Then I decided to find a place to sleep for the night. Avalon is a pretty small town and the pickings seemed slim, but I decided to gamble and bike up the cliff to where the gnarly huge rich people homes were. I made it up pretty high and was getting discouraged because every property had really tall walls and there weren’t any public areas.
But then, I came across this little path on the left side of the street. I walked my bike down the little brick pathway, across the dirt, past the water treatment plant, and then there it was: the perfect campsite. I’m talkin, up on the cliff, overlooking the harbor, adequate coverage, and topped off with a tree swing. So. Premium.
So I set up camp there, swung on my little swing for a while, watched the sun set behind the mountains, sat and enjoyed the breeze, watched the harbor and town lights slowly turn on and reflect off the water, and then sat back and viewed the stars as it got dark. It was perfect. I then crawled into my sleeping bag and just enjoyed the night sky, the peaceful harbor, the perfect temperature, and the glow of Long Beach just visible on the horizon.
Leaving Long Beach:
Fixing my flat tire:
My tree swing:
The view from the water treatment plant as I walked back to the road the next morning.
Sketches and Day 6’s Route:
