Sketchiness

Ahoy from San Francisco!! I'm pretty pumped about being here-it feels like it's a major landmark that we've been striving towards for a while now, so it's satisfying to have finally reached it.

We hada good ride this morning to get here- not too long, but the area is very cyclist friendly. Well, friendly in that there are plenty of paved bike paths and bike lanes, but completely unfriendly in that the hills were steep and long. Yuck. But we made it to the Golden Gate Bridge- it was a bit unceremonious, since the bridge was completely covered with fog, so we could only see about the first 200 meters,which weren't all that exciting. After Tom expertly nagivated us through the city- ensuring that we covered as much elevation changes as possible- we made it to our hostel.

It's a bit sketchy. Well, maybe not a bit- maybe more like alot. But that's ok. We're getting used to the sketchiness of California already. Most people that we have met have been complete psychos, so I guess the entirety of the Northern Californian coast has been an effective desensitizing experience with regard to sketchiness.

For example...

1: The guy we met last night- so, he walks over to where Tom, Jason, and I were eating dinner, and offers us some wine- he had a huge story about how he got the wine from some guy who he gave a bike lock to. The bottle was already opened, but he seemed nice enough, so I guess that we weren't really worried about the possibility that he did anything to it at the beginning. However, as he started to talk we became much more wary. He told us how he was a declared homeless person, who thought that he was the first person to experience an enlightment which allowed him to be the last avant garde artist, and the first person to be able to relate this enlightenment to tennis. He ranted for awhile about how he was going to make tennis a mind-body-soul experience, and so on- I think we had all successfully blocked out his spiel by that point, so his later comments are now lost to the world.

2: The guy we met this morning- we come upon him when we stepped out of our tent. He was sleeping in front of one of our food boxes in a sleeping bag. He looked kind of like a disshevelled version of Sean Connery, but didn't say much other than asking us for the time, and telling us about the raccoons who were fighting all night (there was a crapload of raccoons at this site- we). So, he left all of his stuff shortly after waking up-he walked off with a little briefcase, and i was a little worried thatthere was a bomb or something in the pile of stuff that he had left (I think that I am really paranoid because I have been listening to a lot of books on tape by american left- and right-wing political activists, so I have been hearing about the Bush administration and the war inIraq for 6-8 hours every day. A person can only listen to so much Michael Moore before going insane...). Fortunately, there was no bomb. The guy came back about 45 minutes later (he had no vehicle, and there was no town around for miles), then packed up his stuff and left.

3: All of the Americans who think that we're from either New Zealand orAustralia based on our accent.

4: Ninja biker- this guy we met was covering crazy long distances daily- he did our last 3 days in one day! He bikes about 250-320km/day! Ridiculous. Mind boggling, even!!!

5: The general population of the town of Garberville- this one guy randomly approached Tom, and explained the entire genealogical background of his two mutts. (one was half rottweiller, half wolf). Another woman greeted us as if we were old friends, which totally caught me off guard. When we looked a little uncertain of who she was, she asked us if we were in fact the couple who was there earlier in the spring. ( There are seriously hundreds of people who do this ride every month) She figured that since we were on a bike, we must be the same people. Another lady was trying to start a fire in the parking lot to cook food. Another drunk guy randomly started giving us directions to who knows where. Hmmm, well i guess that that gives you the general picture.