That picture of my friend with the washboarded gravel was literally the only washboard (about 20 feet worth) that I encountered all day!

Today was mostly paved, but the dirt/gravel I did do was all good.

Good route choice! That's some serious back-country California you traversed there.

So glad you had a nice lounger to relax in at the end of the day!
Especially after those killed washboards.

We loved having you join us for a ride up Hwy 1…I hope the rest of your trip is just as scenic.

That just don't look anything like Kentucky!
Have fun!

Sorry, pal, I think you lost your "old man" cred on May 19th after your SEVENTH 100-mile ride of the year. :-)

"Have you ever seen a stranger animal?" Humans, perhaps?

Thanks, Greg. Lately I've felt like calling it "High Anxiety", given how nervous I've been the last few days about this tour, especially the more complicated logistics compared to just riding out of my driveway. I don't like flying, and I'm concerned that my bike will be messed up when I arrive in California. But once I start the actual riding, I think I'll feel a lot better.

"Finger in the wind is where you lick your finger and hold it up to see which way the wind is blowing, and then you go with it."

I think the first time I started *literally* doing that fairly often was in 2016. One morning on the tour Joy and I did from Mexico to Canada, we got up, decided we didn't feel like riding into a headwind out of the north - the direction we had tentatively planned the night before - and just rode east instead. It worked out fine.

Jacinto and I were just discussing vibes vs planning this morning. We have a layover day - we are both feeling good and the weather is perfect. Why are we not riding? Because it's in the schedule! We agreed getting me to change to a finger in the wind sort of riding style would be difficult. I'm the planner.

Finger in the wind is where you lick your finger and hold it up to see which way the wind is blowing, and then you go with it. That's how Jacinto likes to live his whole life. Go with the flow - maybe that's easier to understand.

I totally get what you are saying, because that describes us perfectly.

Great choice for a title. In fact, "Vibes" would be a great choice for any of my recent journal titles too. I wish I would have come up with it before you did.

"You surely know that..."

Surely you jest! I have barely looked at the map(s), and don't where those two valleys are yet.

If it's unbearably hot I'll try to be done by noon. Or ride most of the hottest sections in the dark.

After doing the New Mexico and Colorado portion of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, I decided that no other bike tour I'd do could ever approach that level of difficulty.

Hopefully I wasn't wrong about that :)

I suppose you are good at dealing with extreme heat. I biked from Ventura to Bishop in July, but wouldn't do it again. You surely know that the San Joaquin and Owens valleys are extremely hot, with no shade. The higher elevation of US 6 in Nevada will be more pleasant.
Hopefully the low elevation sections in California won't be too difficult.

Thanks. I've had bike shops box up the bike at the end of a couple of tours for shipping home, but of course there's not much pressure in that situation if something goes wrong.

I'm spending a little more money for the bike ship in California to put it together, but it's worth the peace of mind for me, especially since I'd undoubtedly run into problems trying to do it myself, given my lack of mechanical ability ;)

I'm using Bike Flights for this, so I'm glad to hear it worked well for you.

I've shipped my bike to the start of a tour 3 times, and once had a local bike shop assemble it and have it ready when I arrived. That's a good approach, because the LBS can assess whether the bike suffered any shipping damage and perhaps fix any such damage prior to your arrival. The other 2 times I shipped the bike to the start I re-assembled it myself in a hotel room. I prefer the LBS approach, because it eliminates the stress/time-crunch of having to assemble the bike yourself when you might prefer to be riding instead. I've also shipped the bike home from the west coast once - in that case I took the bike to a LBS and had then disassemble and pack it and I arranged for Bike Flights to pick it up from the LBS. I had better experience using Bike Flights than just using FED-EX or UPS and this is what I will do on future tours.