Huntington Beach

So that's where I'm going on vacation. All week long, friends and co-workers have been asking me, "so where are you going?"

"Somewhere in Southern California ... near L.A. ... (trailing off.)"

You don't know where you're going?"

Um, no ... it's a family vacation. My parents planned it ... (trailing off.)"

"What are you, 7?"

But in a way, that's what this vacation is pretty much about. Being 7 years old again ... for all of the good and the bad of it. Today we set up on the beach and I actually went boogie boarding. I never saw much point to it before, but it is pretty fun. A couple of times I tried to paddle under the crest of the wave, like surfers do on TV, riding out that beautiful curve until it meets its natural conclusion. It didn't quite work that way for me. It was more like an underwater thrashing while the breaking water dragged me over a lot of abrasive sand. Even more fun was fighting the crazy tidal current as it dragged us out to sea.

I put on two different coats of SPF 50 and I still have a couple of burn patches on my back and legs. I think I'm blinding all of these beautiful Californians with my previously unexposed areas of pasty Alaskan skin.

My dad and I found a whole pile of beach cruisers in a garage at this condo we're staying in. Only three were semi-workable, and even then just barely. I don't think I'd ever get much of a workout spinning a clankety single-speed at 9 mph along a crowded bike path, but I suppose it's better than nothing. I didn't find much in the way of bicycle rentals in this area. I'll have to fan out my search area on Monday. I don't really know how far out of town I'm going to be able to get.

If anyone near Huntington Beach has a working bike they wouldn't mind renting to me, for compensation of course, for a week ... maybe you could send me your contact info to jillhomer66@hotmail.com. Anything would be much appreciated!

Sun shock

Date: Aug. 13 and 14
Mileage: 30. 7 and 44.1
August mileage: 328.5

My internet went down at home, but I'll always be a geek so I wanted to post my mileage before I forgot it, so I'm posting from a hotel room somewhere in the sprawl of Los Angeles. I just flew in from Juneau this morning. I heard the sun came out there today. I missed it.

I made two stops today - a beautiful flyover above the fjords surrounding Sitka; and Seattle, where I had a strange conversation with a man in which it took me at least two minutes to explain to him that I lived in Juneau, not L.A., and I was flying to my vacation, not home from it.

Then the plane dropped into the smog and the sprawl. The mountains were just ghosts in the hazy distance, and then it was just flat and buildings as far as I could see. I walked out the door into the warm sun and took off my outermost layer outside for the first time in, I don't know, years. I'm happy to soak it up when I can and I'm thrilled to see my family, but I have to say. Southern California ... I don't get it. Maybe I will in a week.

Until then, I'm on the hunt for a bike rental shop. There are at the very least endless roads here to explore, and I can't stand just leaving them there. I just can't.

Taste of October

Date: Aug. 12
Mileage: 25.3
August mileage: 253.7

I rode into some really driving rain this morning - blowing sideways, it was a 30 mph direct hit to the face with sharp daggers of water. The temperature was about 50 but the windchill drove it down to something that felt almost frigid, and I remembered what it's like here, at least most of the time, during the fall.

The miles are well-earned in Juneau falls and winters. I forget just how much so until I compare a fall-like day such as today with the relative ease of the summer days earlier this week. I head out with a plan to go hard, but usually start focusing so much on how miserable I am that I lapse into survival mode, put my head down, and grind through it. The nice thing about October compared to a day like today is that it actually is cold. After an hour or so my hands and feet go numb, giving me a good excuse to quit, unlike a day like today, wherein I have to admit that I quit early simply because I was miserable.

And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "The longer I spend at this, the more I improve my remote chance of actually being prepared for Trans Utah, which would enable a swift retreat to the desert for more than an entire week of that diabolical month everyone else calls October." The problem is ... it's August, and I already have my escape mapped out. I leave Friday for the faraway climes of Southern California, to laze in the sun and drink cold Pepsi and remember what it's like to wear shorts in the summer and probably not touch a bicycle for a full week. Mid-August, yes, well, now that you mention it, that would be a peak time to train for Trans Utah. Plus, the family vacation to California - looking forward to it though I am - puts a serious dent in my remaining vacation leave at work. October time off will come at a price. Compromises will have to be made. Pleas will have to be plead. All to do a ride that I won't be well conditioned for, in a venue that's more than a little out of my league.

But as I look out the window at the hard-driving rain, I wonder how I can afford not to.