//location:

Russian Gulch State Park

Mendocino, Calif.

//time: 7:00 pm

//mi: 846

//from where I write:

Was really feeling writing a second ago, but suddenly just overcome by urgent desire to shower.

Ok. Grand. That felt good. Actually, it was rather tepid and unsatisfying.

Though I did find a little bottle of abandoned peach ginger shampoo in the shower, so that made me feel queenly. And in feeling queenly, I remembered I had thrown in a couple little sample packs of Kiehl's overnight biological peels, so lathered up with that stuff. Little luxuries make a big difference on the road.

I'm accidentally way ahead of schedule. Originally I had told myself I'd arrive by Sept. 1. Modified that to Aug. 27.

Now, it's looking like Aug. 24 and that's even with me cutting some days' mileage in half.

ive deduced the reason I keep accidentally jumping ahead of schedule is because these days have just been so beautiful--of course I don't want to stop biking.

shot along the way (today was distractingly beautiful)

Plus, I can feel myself getting stronger + my body adapting to these longer days. Six hours of biking every day doesn't feel so bad. Funny, though, that despite the fact that I had trained in the months leading up to this, I haven't had any cramps or body aches or anything. Sometimes when I'm tackling climbs my lower right back will really pinch up, but I can tolerate it if I take a break now and then.

Like ok today: supposed to be just a 30 mi day since a) I needed to draw my trip out and wait for Brian to get back to SF on the 25th, and b) I figured I'd be beat from all the climbs. (Today was nutso hilly and was the day of the infamous Leggett Hill.)

But I passed my original end point and I was like, you know what--don't feel like stopping. So I didn't. And then before I knew it, I'd shaved off my tomorrow.

Leggett. Oh, Leggett. Deserves a mention among the records for sure.

This was scrawled on the inside of the food safe box at Standish-Hickey, the campground right before the climb.

I'd first heard about Leggett from Parker back in Bruceport, Wash. He told me all the cyclists I meet leading up to Leggett will be having a fit about it, but it's not all that bad.

I kept repeating that to myself every time my mind wandered to the memory of the elevation profile.

It was a long climb. About 3.3 mi over an hour--and perfectly fit to the 60min long This American Life episode I'd downloaded over breakfast this morning. (I find podcasts great accompaniment for climbs.) And as always, the downhill made up for the uphill. Hairpin turns, which are kinda scary, and I maxed speed @ 46 mph. Yoooo.

Oh! And I ran into Alban + Jessica again today. Just a brief passing and hello.

And speaking of people who are doing nutso crazy things, I also met a dude who's walking from Tampa to Seattle. He was also staying at Standish-Hickey Campground last night.

He's 23, and when in introduced himself to me, for some reason I knew he was a "ph" Stephen. He handed me his card later and I was very satisfied to turn it over and, yep, sure enough. Ha.

He walks 15-20 mi/day. His shirt yesterday read "walked here from Florida." Today, "Google."

Anyway, we ate breakfast at this little place across the street from camp.

As we sat outside with our breakfast burritos, I watched several cyclists pedal by. Leggett-bound. Dooooom. I felt like I was watching troops send off to war. I waved at each one of them + said "good luck" in such a whisper, I don't even think Stephen heard me.

He's quite the interesting character. Each sentence he speaks ends with a decisive period. These are facts I know, he seemed to say. He knew a lot about psychology. Ran an SEO/social media management business.

Sometimes I just wanted to close my eyes and watch the sun make patterns of my eyelid. Sometimes silence in the mornings is nice.

As I was gearing up to leave, we talked more about Leggett. "Don't make a mountain of a hill," he said encouragingly, despite him confessing from his observations yesterday that Leggett would actually fall in the category of Tiny Mountain.

"Nope!" I said. "Ain't nothing. Not a big deal. No such thing as mountains." I hopped on my bike.

"If there weren't mountains," he said, "we'd have no valleys."

Of course, dude walking across the U.S.

"Touché," I said, clipped in my shoes and ride off.

View after the Leggett climb and outside the forest that followed. Smelled the ocean before I saw it :)