Victory lap to the Pacific!

My body must have sensed that the end was near because my immune system took the night off. I had a fever, chills and cold sweats overnight. I didn’t sleep well and felt tired and feverish in the morning.

We were able to relax and take our time getting ready. The plan was to meet my aunt, uncle, mom and dad at an overlook spot off of highway 46, about 20 miles from Cayucos Pier and the Pacific. We coordinated the rendezvous so Aunt Joey could pick up Mom and Dad from the airport and drive them directly to meet us.

I ate breakfast at Starbucks and caught up on some blog posts. Jacob hung around the room. When I got the “go ahead call” from Joey I made my way back to the room to finish getting ready.

It was an emotional morning. Jacob and I had been having communication issues the past few days. Here are examples of a few sentences (or fragments) that he said and I didn’t understand or that bugged me: “I need where you are” (you need what?) “your wheel…” (my wheel, what?) “does Vick play for the falcons?” (you’re kidding, right? eye roll), “Is this the game?” (what game, it is a football game but if you meant the redskins game I already told you they won hours ago). My responses to these questions included shrugging, eye rolling, “seriously?”, and “I don’t get it”. Mature, right?

He asked one more question that really ticked me off.

Background…our bike pump had been failing for about two weeks. Whereas normally I kinda liked my “pumping tires duties” (I considered it a necessary upper body workout), it became really frustrating. The pump started to “kick back” and wouldn’t pump air. Something was breaking inside it. I needed to jump up and down while pumping in order to get it started. Sometimes that didn’t even work. And when I got it started it took at least four times the normal effort to pump the tires to 120.

Jacob was sitting on the bed drinking his soda when I struggled through pumping his rear tire. I jumped up and down, readjusted the pump, tried again, stopped, took a break, sweating and out of breath (still feeling sick and tired). Obviously the pump was acting up. Jacob then asked, nonchalantly, “Oh, is it kicking back again?” I LOST IT and yelled “Seriously?!? What the hell do you think?!?” After a few minutes of calming down and talking it over, we decided to be friends again and enjoy or last day. I had tears in my eyes as we rolled away from the
motel.

We rode over beautiful rolling hills, past Firestone brewery and through vineyards. York Mountain was final obstacle between us and the ocean. About halfway up we heard a car honk and then stop behind us. Hello, Uncle Bob! We talked for a bit, unloaded our heavy packs and put them in Bob’s trunk, and got going again….much, much lighter! Man, what a difference those pounds made.

About three quarters of the way up the mountain, we heard some more honking, some cheers, and saw purple streamers and balloons out the window of Joey’s car. Woohoo! Perfect timing to the overlook. We summited the 1730ft climb and caught our first glimpse of the Pacific. “Ahhhhhhh!!!! (pointing, fist pumping) Ocean!” We found the overlook and stopped to greet our cheerleaders and fans. It was so great to see my family! We took some pictures and mom put purple streamers on our bikes. We had 9 miles left to get to the bottom of the mountain, then 10 more flat miles to get to Cayucos.

A few pedal strokes in to the descent, I noticed my gears shifting weirdly and then not at all. “Jacob!”. We stopped and found the streamers lodged in my chain ring. Oops! “Get these things outa here!”. We fixed the issue, tossed the streamers (sorry mom!) and got back on track. Much better.

We passed a sign for the Brown Butter Cookie Co. I asked Jacob if he could smell the ocean. He said “I’m trying to smell those cookies!”
Riding on route 1 along the coast was amazing. We saw Morro Rock in the distance, waves crashing, sun shining. When we rode past the sign for Cayucos, Jacob pointed his finger like a gun to shoot it, as he had done with other destinations along the way. This one was a little more special.

The last gun shot.

We rode up to the pier, found the family and Joey introduced us to the owner of a beach shop and told him about our ride. We then ran to the ocean. I did a cartwheel, Jacob dipped his tire, we high fived, and then we both dove in.

That’s it? Weird.

We racked the bikes, cleaned up, and went to lunch. I was still feeling a little under the weather and a lot overwhelmed. I kinda zoned out at lunch. Jacob bought brown butter cookies for all of us. They tasted like Werther’s caramel candies, which reminded me of my grandma and grandpa’s house in Lancaster PA.

After lunch we drove (not biked!) to Joey and Bob’s house in Atascadero. Their house is baller and could be on Cribs. I had my own room for the first time in six weeks (unless you count the tent on the few nights when Jacob slept in the hammock…I don’t count that).

Joey and Bob cooked an awesome sausage and bruschetta dinner. I drank Firestone 805 beer (we rode by the brewery earlier in the day) and we had Joey’s most excellent homemade chocolate and cherry lava cake for dessert. I crawled into bed early and slept like a rock.

We’re done!?!?!