Day 25

September 6th 2008

Carpenteria, CA to Leo Carrillo Beach SP

50.9 Miles

Today I achieved a personal record. At least for this trip. 50 Miles in 3.5 hours. I was flying. I had a few things working in my favor to help me achieve this feat of strength. For one, the terrain was mostly flat. I also had a slight tailwind. The best motivation is always personal and today I had the best motivation. My girlfriend was meeting me today for lunch. I was excited to see her for the first time in about 3 weeks, so I pushed the pace a little, or a lot.

It also meant that I didn’t make too many stops or take too many photos. Really there wasn’t much reason. Today, like a lot of days on this trip, began cloudy and foggy and stayed that way for most of my ride. It was warm however. I did make one stop for a photo opportunity. Missile Park is a roadside display of the different types of missiles that have been used or are being used by our military. The park is located right next to Point Mugu, a Naval base where they test many of these weapons. I don’t normally go for this kind of display, but being able too inspect them up close and personal was cool. They even had two jets on display, an F4 Phantom and an F14 Tomcat. Very cool.

Missile Park, Pt Mugu

F14 Tomcat

These were actual planes used to fly missions before being retired. It was really neat to be able to walk around underneath them and really study their form. The best part was I had the whole park to myself. I could look at display and the accompanying information with out feeling crowded or rushed. It was nice. Still, I had a date waiting for me so I stayed for only 20 minutes and then hit the road again.

I reached Leo Carrillo State Park by a little after 10 am. I took a quick shower and waited for Monique to arrive. Around 12:30 she showed up. It was so nice to see her. She was happy to see me too even though I hadn’t shaved in about 3 weeks. Not that I had a beard, oh no, I can only manage to look scruffy, really scruffy. Oh well, at least I smelled nice.

Even though I was going to camp out at the park I loaded my bike and all my gear into her rental car while we went to lunch. We drove about 15 miles south into the heart of Malibu to got ourselves some food. After a long lunch, we got back into the car and started driving again.

At some point I realized we weren’t heading north back to the campground. I asked her what was up and she said she was kidnapping me and we were going to spend the rest of the day together. I protested…weakly, very weakly and then realized that this adventure was about having fun. So what if I don’t ride every mile. it was more important to me to spend some quality time with Monique. She figured we could stay at her grandmother’s house tonight and she would drop me off in the morning south of LA and I could start riding from there. I must admit I was a little intimidated by the idea of riding through the mean streets of the big city and this little detour would save me some of the stress. Besides, I didn’t have any choice, she had the car keys. After an hour’s drive on numerous busy and crowded roads (seriously, people like to live down here?) we reached her grandmother’s house where we relaxed for the rest of the day.

Maury