I took advantage of the free breakfast buffet at the hotel, then made a quick call to my parents, someone had mistakenly written "sorry about your Dad" on Facebook and I was worried something had happened while I was sleeping. He was okay, and my mom guessed from my SPOT data that I was at the Comfort Inn. I did not talk to my parents often, my cell phone hardly had reception, but we did need to arrange them meeting me after I finished the trail in Oregon.
The fluffy coat now felt heavy and I stopped at a few outdoor stores on the route to see if I could find something lighter (in retrospect, I was so close to the finish, maybe a waste of time). I grabbed a North Face boys' puffy jacket and stopped at a FedEx up ahead to mail myself the other coat and my GPS watch, which seemed to have stopped charging, sadly. It would have been neat to have had the entire run on Strava, I wished I had had a replacement watch. The employees at the outdoor stores had been impressed with my journey, it was always neat to talk to people who could appreciate what I was doing because they had done similar things themselves. At the last outdoor store one employee recommended some short, thin socks to replace the ones that made my feet sweat (they didn't have my favorite brand), and a small flashlight that took one triple-A battery. I got both, pitching the sweat-inducing socks and saving the flashlight in case, without my solar charger now, I decided to make a run for the finish and my USB-chargeable headlamp ran out of power. At one of the convenience stores I had found rechargeable extra long lasting batteries, these kept my SPOT powered much longer than the standard AAAs (maybe six days instead of one to two) and I bought another set at a Walgreens on the route, along with more caffeine pills, the old ones didn't seem to work very well. Or maybe I was immune by now, or just too tired.
I decided to go with the Samoa Bridge route as it would get me over to the regular CCT route along the beach must faster than the alternate route. If the only reason the alternate route didn't take the Samoa bridge was that pedestrians weren't allowed, and now pedestrians were allowed, it seemed okay to take the bridge. And again I figured the next person to run the CCT could use this route if they wanted to, it would hopefully make things easier for them too -- unless they decided to hire a private water taxi across the bay, probably the fastest option. Bicycles passed me on the bridge, there was a nice shoulder to run on. A police car passed me too, without stopping. When I got to the other side of the bridge I crossed the road and saw trails heading toward the beach. I hadn't been exactly sure how I would get to the beach, Google Maps didn't show a road or trail, but there were bike trails everywhere, some leading straight to the beach, others paralleling it.
After traversing a short trail I cut over a dune and down to the packed sand. By now it was cold and the wind was blowing strongly. I put on my rain jacket and then listened to music as I jogged slowly against the forces of the sand and wind. As I neared the end of the beach segment I said hello to a couple, Irena Nikolova and her friend who was visiting to scope out the area before deciding to move. We talked about my trip. When we got to their car they came back with bananas and packaged lentil soup and an Indian curry dish! "We thought you could use some food running all those miles," they said. I saved it all to eat while I walked. The Indian curry so delicious!!
I walked on, the sun was setting now with beautiful pastel colors over farmland. The Hammond Trail went over a bridge and down a country road. I said hello to a man walking his dog, we talked briefly about my trip. It seemed that I had everything I needed, all he could think to offer was the local marijuana, I laughed and said "no thanks." In Petrolia, where it's featured on the local currency, someone had wanted to give me some to burn ceremonially as incense, too. A mile later I ran into an unexpected convenience store and stopped to buy snacks and coffee for the night.
Ahead was a nice flat bike path, complete with CCT markers. I ran by a sports complex and the beach, then by a campsite where I debated stopping for the night. It was getting really cold, but the night was too early, so I went on. I ran on a road named Scenic Drive and thought how it must be nice in the daylight. A girl eating a peanut butter sandwich said hello. I stopped to talk to her, she asked me if I had seen a red truck, I thought maybe I had. A car passed and she threw out her thumb to hitchhike. "They never stop," she shook her head.
I made it to Trinidad, one of California's oldest and smallest incorporated cities. In 1880 it had a population of 109, today a population of 359. While I was trying to find an outdoor outlet at the closed gas station a tattooed young guy was trying to pump gas. He asked me if I knew of another station nearby, all I knew was that the town of Patrick's Point was up ahead. I told him about my run and he offered to let me charge my phone with his car charger, but I wanted to keep moving. "Be careful out there dude," he said as I left.
I spotted an outlet in the back of a small tourist shop, next to a trailer, with people sleeping inside? I hoped I wouldn't disturb them as I sat down and plugged in for a short charge while I looked at the maps again. Up ahead was another trail segment. Sitting there I started to get cold and thought I better get on the road again. I followed the map through town, there was a sign with an arrow that said "trail" where I thought the trail should have been, just down the street was a big sign marking the path down to the beach. The trail seemed steep in the dark but the ocean below was beautiful and serene in the middle of the night. At the far end I was supposed to follow a stream up to a bridge, cross the bridge, and then ascend to a road. I followed the stream back into the woods but there was no bridge, and the trail appeared to end. I used rocks to cross to the other side of the stream and looked for a way up, but there was nothing. I went back to first side of the stream and climbed up to a ledge, I thought I might head up to the road, but there was the trail, above me. Not sure how I missed the path up to the trail, maybe this was the way. I hoisted myself up and breathed a sigh of relief as I walked down it. Up ahead was the bridge.
A few miles later I had made it to a main road and was getting drowsy, it was nearing four in the morning. I had seen motels on the map in the stretch up ahead so thought I would take the first one I came to. The Sea Cliff Motel appeared to be open and it had a vacancy sign. I walked up to it and a dog came over to greet me, then one of the innkeepers, they were still awake! One of their guests was up late playing his guitar for them that night. They were happy to check me in and I was happy to have a place to sleep. I wasn't sure what else would be open at this hour. The guitar player said that he was traveling the country by motorcycle and when he was young he had ridden his bicycle from his home state of Wisconsin to Canada! Showing me my room the innkeeper told me they had never had someone show up in the middle of the night like I did, "you appeared out of nowhere, like a fairy," she said. And I told her their establishment was a fairytale haven for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment