Tonight is going to be an early night. It's only 20 to 9 and it's already pretty dark here in the California Redwoods. I was thinking about going to a movie but I really didn't feel like riding the 10 miles back into town. I also had the option of buying firewood from the campground host and lighting a fire but it just sounds like too much work right now and it's not even cold enough that a fire would feel really good. So, I sit here at my picnic table pecking away at this laptop.
I've kind of been in a funk today. Actually the funk has been building since yesterday. I think that it all started with not eating very good for the last couple of days. I've actually managed to eat reasonably healthy thus far on the trip. I've been doing a lot of Subway and ordering extra veggies. I have also been trying to eat a lot of fruit. Most importantly, I've been trying not to pig out on any one meal. Most of the trip that hasn't been a problem because I have been doing so much hiking that even when I ate large meals they were offset by the amount of activity that I did that day. Today was the first day of the whole trip were I was doing a solid day of riding for the second day in a row.
It all started with breakfast yesterday. I had just come off of my 13.5 miles of hiking the previous night and I was pretty hungry. I stopped in Forks, Washington and ordered a Country Skillet. The skillet probably had enough potatoes, country fried steak and gravy to feed a small country. I could have eaten just half of it and would have been pretty full. But for some reason I kept forcing myself to keep eating. I did leave the last couple of bites on the plate but the damage had already been done.
It was so late by the time that I was hungry for lunch that I decided to skip lunch and just wait until dinner. In my experience this is never a good idea because usually it means that I am so hungry by the time that dinner comes around that I make poor food choices. I'm not sure that a Turkey and Bacon Subway sandwich stacked with veggies counts as a poor food choice but the fact that I had a full 12 inch sandwich instead of my normal 6 inch just added to the mass of food that was festering in my stomach.
When I woke up this morning I was determined to have a light breakfast since I knew that I would have another full day of riding and not a whole lot of exercise. Unfortunately my choices in the small town of Seal Rock, Oregon were limited. After tossing my laundry in the washer at the laundromat I walked over to a little espresso stand (which seem to be everywhere in Washington and Oregon) and ordered a large coffee and piece of banana bread.
Similar to the effect that I experienced the previous day the light breakfast just meant that I was that much hungrier for lunch. I stopped at Wendy's in Roseburg, Oregon and got a Monterey Ranch Chicken Sandwich, a fruit cup and a broccoli and cheese baked potato.
Shortly after finishing lunch I was already hungry again. I think that this is the effect of not eating good food. My body was trying to tell me that it needed some substantial nutrition. By the time that dinner came around I was so hungry that I once again ignored what my body was trying to tell me and went with the easy route. I stopped at a chinese restaurant and had some garlic chicken, roast pork and chicken chow mein. The only vegetables in the whole plate were the little pieces of cabbage in the chow mein.
As I look back on the list of what I ate over the last day it really doesn't sound all that bad. I think that the real problem though isn't the food that is on the list of things that I ate, it's the food that's missing from that list. Part of my weight loss strategy has been to 'fill' myself up with good food so that I'm not as hungry for less healthy food. On an average day at home I eat a fairly substantial quantity of fresh fruits and vegetables. I feel that's what has been missing from my diet over the last couple of days. The fact that I have not been getting my normal amount of exercise may have also contributed to the funk.
Somehow I doubt that the description of my diet over the last couple days could possibly be interesting to anyone but myself (and that may even be debatable as I look back on this in a few days). But that is what was on my mind just now so that's what I wrote about.
Fortunately my dietary funk was not the only noteworthy experience today. I think that the most memorable experience of the day was watching some seals ride the surf off of Oregon coastline. When I planned this trip it didn't even occur to me that I might see ocean wildlife as I made the journey. I just thought that it would be a pretty ride. But so far I have seen starfish, anenome, seals and sea lions. It seems so strange to me to see all of these in the 'wild'. I've only ever seen seals and sea lions in an aquarium before today.
Another highlight of the day was stopping through Roseburg, Oregon where I was born nearly 29 years ago. I stopped to take a picture at the city's welcome sign. The sign was placed near a busy intersection where I'm sure that everybody was wondering what the hell I was doing propping up my camera on a pile of rocks to try and get myself into the picture via a timed photo. While in Roseburg I stopped for lunch at Wendy's (the only Wendy's in the whole state of Oregon as far as I could tell) and then camped out at a Comfort Inn parking lot to steal some free wireless internet access.
I was surprised that no one came out of the hotel to ask what the hell I was doing sitting in the middle of an empty parking lot pounding away on a laptop keyboard. I was hoping to get my journal entries posted onto my website but I discovered that my website has gone offline. So, I guess by the time that you (whoever you are) read this I will probably already be home. Lacking the ability to update my website I just emailed my sister Marci to let her know that I was still alive and then I packed up the laptop and moved on.
Other than the sidetrip to Roseburg (which was about a 150 mile detour) I spent the whole day on Hwy 101; otherwise known as the Pacific Coast Highway. Most people don't realize that the Pacific Coast Highway is only right on the coast for about a third of it's distance. A good portion of the time you are a mile or more inland and the remainder of the time you are close to the coast but can't really see the beach or the water. Even if you were only on the actual coast for one tenth of the distance it would still be a worthwhile ride. The scenery is breathtaking.
Since I ended up camping last night when I had originally planned to stay in a hotel I felt like I owed myself a night's stay in a hotel. I didn't have any immediate plans to stay in a hotel since I had managed to do my laundry, shower and connect to the internet today. However, I did nearly cash in that option tonight. When I crossed the border into California the fog had rolled in from the ocean and it was starting to get a little chilly. I was tired from riding all day and was thinking how nice it would feel to just plunk myself down into a hotel room without having to go through the trouble of setting up camp.
After eating dinner at the Chinese restaurant I stopped at the Penny Saver Inn to check on room prices. How could you go wrong with a name like “Penny Saver”? They wanted $60 for a night in the hotel. That's really not all that much but the place was a shit hole. It's the sort of place that I was expecting to pay 40 to 50 dollars. You know it's a real quality hotel when you have to check out the remote control for your room from the front desk. It tells you that their normal clientèle are the type of people that steal TV remotes. I just couldn't stomach the price and I decided to press on to a campground.
Ironically the campground prices were also pretty ridiculous. It's costing me $20 a night to stay in a California State Park campground (Redwood National Park is actually jointly managed by the Department of the Interior and the state of California). I only spent $10 a night at Olympic National Park. I suppose that the campsite is pretty nice and they do have showers in the campground.
I was expecting to self-register like I do at most National Park campgrounds, but was surprised to find a ranger manning the entrance station to the campground. The ranger was a younger female and was kind of pretty and very friendly. So friendly in fact that it almost seemed like she was flirting with me. So, I flirted back a little bit. I must have picked up the wrong vibe from her because when I started to flirt back she not-so-subtlety mentioned that today was her last day of summer before going back to high school tomorrow. Ick! I felt like a dirty old man. I swear that she looked like she was at least 24.
No comments:
Post a Comment