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Day Two, Santa Cruz to King City
Today's ride was the longest of the week: 106 miles. It's also full of "stuff": the Cookie Lady, the swimming hole, and now the Otter Pop stop, courtesy of my friend Kyle (with whom I rode much of the ride last year). Add to that a flat amongst the group I'm riding with, and generally taking it easy because it's my first century of the year. Not to mention Charlie my tent mate (aka domestic partner for the week) feeling lousy and wanting to take it easy... put all that together and you get a ride that started at 7:15 am and ended at 7:15 pm. I averaged 14.6 mph, so a good 4.5 hours or so was spent with the bike standing still. The good news is that I made it, and for the second year in a row, I sprinted the last 8 miles or so, having a great time on these rolling hills that overlook a valley of farms on the way into King City. Life is good!
In other news, I got my two minutes of fame when Lorri Jean told my cab story amongst her anecdotes during announcements tonight. Her embellished version of the story had my GPS gear turned on in the trunk of the taxi, so I ended up with a detailed record of all the adventures my luggage had without me.
Day One, San Francisco to Santa Cruz
Dude, where's my stuff?
I'm sure each one of us wants some notoriety, to be remembered for something. I got that opportunity today. I'm pretty sure this story will make the rounds through the ALC community, maybe even make it into the nightly announcements.
I took a cab to the Cow Palace. It was a madhouse, cabs and cars dropping people off everywhere they weren't supposed to. I got out of the cab, slammed the door and went to reach into the trunk for my gear, when the cab started to pull away. At first I thought he was just relocating out of the traffic flow, but, no, he kept going, trunk still flapping open. The police who were directing traffic radioed up to the next intersection to try and catch the guy, to no avail. The cab vanished. I hung out there for an hour waiting for the driver to come back with my stuff. No dice.
I had hailed the cab from in front of my apartment, so I'm not even certain which cab company it was, much less the cab's id. I called the company I believe it was, and put out an alert, but they haven't heard anything from their drivers. So I got to watch the opening ride-out from the sidelines (which itself was pretty awesome) and then I hitched a ride back home. I am still hoping to get my stuff back, but who knows. The current plan is to borrow and buy a few things, and hustle down to Santa Cruz to keep up with the rest of the pack. I'll keep you posted.
Update: I called Yellow again and they found the luggage! They graciously offered to let me pick it up from them in Potrero Hill, or they would deliver it- for a fee!. What a wonderful company that is. Actually, I am just glad to know where my stuff is. I will probably not update until the end of day but at least things are heading in the right direction.
in camp in Santa cruz. all is well. keyboard is dead so i'll keep it short tap tap tap. more later. thanks for the ride Shawn!
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Here's a little more detail about Sunday: I drove down to the Yellow lot in this sketchy part of town, and, well, that's a whole other story, but needless to say there were several characters straight out of central casting. The best part was after I retrieved my luggage and was wheeling it toward the exit, some guy asked me if I needed a taxi.
My boyfriend Shawn very graciously drove me down to Santa Cruz so I could be reunited with the rest of the group and we could spend a little more quality time together. All of my movements were captured by the GPS- the trip from the cow palace home, to the taxi lot and back, and then the drive to Santa Cruz, including getting lost at the end. Check it out on the map. There are tons of points in the route- hope it doesn't crash your browser. (This feature is still in beta.)