jen and harry

After riding across the Golden Gate, I made my way up a few more hills south of the bridge.  If I had asked a few locals what the flattest way to the downtown area was, I could have easily avoided a few steep climbs.  Oh well.  I’m a man, and you know what men do…they don’t ask for directions!  Guys, guys, guys…

I was trying to meet up with Jen and Harry within the next 20 minutes.  They were going to a 48-hour film project screening down in San Jose, and I didn’t want to hold them up.  I cycled hard and fast but kept hitting lights.  Like a good cyclist, I didn’t run any red lights, but that didn’t stop others.  I had read that getting ticketed for running red lights in SF was pretty common.

I pedaled through the downtown area on my way to the Mission District.  Hipster central.  Many cyclists were wearing these new ‘fashionable’ stupid-looking helmets that couldn’t possibly keep your brain within your skull if you had an accident.  They looked like those cheap, thin plastic helmets you get when you go whitewater rafting.  There were also a lot of people on cruiser bikes.  I’d hate to be on one of those in hilly SF.

After passing Jen and Harry’s street twice, I finally arrived at their below-ground level apartment.  They weren’t too thrilled to live there since it was practically a bat cave.  No natural sunlight.  But they were moving out in two weeks.  I hesitantly asked if I could take a shower (given the time), but they told me to take my time.  Sweeties.

Jen and Harry were pretty big cyclists.  Obvious from the many bicycles in their apartment.  To get to San Jose, Jen rented a ‘zip car’.  $7 an hour (includes gas/insurance).  Awesome business idea and a great service for someone who lives in a city where a car is not really necessary.

48 hour film project

The screening was in a huge theater.  Nice turnout.  48 Hour Film Project:  Your team applies to be in the contest.  You are given a genre and key words/props you must incorporate into the video.  48 hours later your project is due.  Everyone then votes on the best video.  I’ve seen videos that have come out of these competitions.  Some are great.  Many are terrible.  The worst ones are the pretentious shorts made by ‘film students’.  Boring.  Not entertaining.  Just plain shit.

Jen and Harry gave me warning that their video sucked.  It was actually an entertaining short video.  Short.  That is key.  Other videos were way too long and seemed to drag on and on.  I’ll focus on the worst ones, since they are fun to bash.

The first short that was screened had this black guy standing in a desolate-looking industrial setting.  Then a fat white guy in a gas mask would occasionally pop up.  The narration was playback from a voice recorder.  TERRIBLE.  It was really embarrassing to watch.

Another team that entered the project was an actual studio in SF that Jen used to work with.  They had a 20+ person crew with actual 3-d effects.  Same thing.  Pretentious chalked full of serious over-acting.  It started out in a bar, and there was this ‘cool edgy’ woman with tats talking to an Indian girl at a bar.  Turns out the edgy woman is a fairy killer.  The worst part of the video was that they tried to make it edgy.  Embarrassing.

The ones that were entertaining were those that didn’t take themselves too seriously.  A group of high school students submitted a short about a bug exterminator.  They ended up winning.  Another solid video revolved around a Western-style showdown with a ghost.

After the screening, we headed back to the city in search of food.  There were only a few places within walking distance of the apartment, so we decided on a burrito restaurant.  $6 for a burrito that lasted 5 seconds.  Damn my appetite.

day in the city

I said goodbye to Harry before he cycled to work.  Jen was going into work late, so she decided to get breakfast with me.  Before leaving, she took me up to the roof of their apartment.

We went to eat breakfast at a local diner on Mission Street.  It was packed.  This place had a interesting rule:  No cell phones.  Great.  And free refills on coffee.  When the bill came, we did the awkward jig of who was going to pay for it.  She insisted on picking it up and wouldn’t let me pay for it.  Very generous hostess.

I got my stuff together and said goodbye to Jen.  I headed downtown to get fitted for a tux because my cousin’s wedding was coming up in another two weeks.  The next few hours were spent cycling downtown and through the wharf area.  I had the rest of the afternoon to kill before meeting up with John, my old VP at Cartoon Network who was now at Lucas Arts and kindly hosting me for two nights.

John worked at the Presidio, located just south of the Golden Gate, so I decided to hang out in that area.  After getting coffee, I walked to a park full of cedar trees and enjoyed the warm weather.  There were a few pet owners playing with their dogs in the park.  A man with a Labrador retriever threw a ball in my direction.  The ball rolled up to my feet, and the man smiled at me.  10 minutes later, it happened again.  The man was either a pickup artist or had bad aim.

Around 6 PM, I headed over to the Presidio to meet John.  I was excited to see John after he sent me an email while I was in Seattle.  He’s a tall guy.  Around 7 feet.  I knew a hug was coming, but I didn’t want my head to be buried deep into his chest.  I tried to devise a strategy to add on a few inches to my height.  Maybe stand on an incline?  Stairs?  By the time he walked outside, I had come up with no strategy, so I decided to just stand on my toes.  I would have loved to see what the hug looked like in third person.

We put my bike into his car and headed to his home just north of the Golden Gate.  John warned me that the house would be cramped and I’d have to sleep on the couch.  No worries.  To me, a couch was luxury.  “We had to downsize the house due to San Francisco real estate prices,” he told me.  We pulled up to his house.  The obviously humble John lived in an awesome house.  The view from the back (complete with swimming pool and fruit trees) was priceless.  It overlooked the entire bay area, and you could see the outline of the city.  And the house was plenty big.  Jennifer, John’s wife, gave me a big hug and immediately made me feel welcome.  Then I met all of John’s kids:  Charlie, Owen, Victoria, and Eliza.  I didn’t feel too bad with my big appetite because everyone around me was bigger.  And I knew John could put away some food.

fun family time

John and Jennifer adopted me into their family for the weekend.  John, the kids, and I headed to the park for some football and soccer action.  Like a cool guy, I tried teaching Victoria and Eliza some tricks with the ball.  They weren’t interested.

And then it was time for some football.  John played on one foot due to an injury.  It was me, Eliza, and Victoria versus Charlie, John, and Owen.  We crushed them.  I celebrated in the end zone by spiking the ball.  I looked back victoriously with my hands in the air.  Everyone’s backs were turned to me.  No one was watching.

We got back to the house and played a bunch of swimming pool games.  I felt like I was 10, and it felt good.  Later that evening, John and Jennifer went to have dinner with some of their friends from Lucas Arts.  The kids and I watched Lord of the Rings.  We competed to see who could guess the upcoming lines.  Owen kept cheating.  He would grunt and growl when orcs came on the screen.  Sure enough, we heard an orchestra of grunts and growls.  The worst part was that the kids all counted those sounds.  Cheaters.  They even guessed ‘battle sounds’ of swords and arrows.  Cheap.  Really cheap.

back to the city

Before John and his family headed down the coast for vacation, I was able to get a ride back to the city via automobile.  When packing up the car, Eliza told Jennifer, “He was the nicest one of Daddy’s friends.  He actually talked to me.”  Jennifer relayed the message to me, and it made me sad to say goodbye to all the kids.  I had a lot of fun, and the experience made me excited to see my family.  Before leaving, we all jumped in the air for a final photo (well, except injured John).

I said goodbye to John in town and made my way to meet up with Tony, a friend from Conyers that went to a nearby high school.  Tony met me outside his apartment located in the Tenderloin District.  He didn’t take pride in living in that district.  I guess it’s the dirtier part of town.

Tony greeted me with a smile and a hug.  I went in for a kiss.  Woops.

“Uh, the elevator is broken, so we’ll have to haul your stuff up the steps,” he said grinning.

“What floor do you live on?”

“The top floor.”  I looked up.  Damn.

finger in the butt

We unloaded my stuff in his apartment and then got something to eat at a pizza place nearby.  After eating overpriced pizza, we headed back to his place.  We walked up to the building’s front doors behind two old men.  The older guy must have been 80+, as he had trouble making it up the steps.  His friend, a guy that appeared to be in his late 60s, turned around and smiled at Tony.  He then proceeded to laugh lightly.  Odd.

The 60-something whispered into the older guy’s ear.  His hand then slipped down the older guy’s back and cupped his butt.  The index and middle fingers then collectively formed a rod of skin and bone that then entered the older man’s crack.  What was going on???  The 60-something continued to drive his fingers further up the older guy’s butt.  Was this happening?  This guy’s entire hand was practically in his ass.  I didn’t react.  I just stared.  I then looked over at shocked Tony.

The old man giggled and giggled.  The 60-something then looked back to Tony and smiled.  Interesting.  This guy was using some pretty aggressive pickup tactics.  We hurried up the steps to Tony’s apartment.

I was hoping Tony lived next to the two men.  I would be leaving in two days.  Tony wouldn’t.  And Tony would probably run into them again.

city of homeless

I had been to SF before, and the city was fully of homeless people.  This visit was no different.  Tony and I walked around the city for a few hours and were constantly approached for money.  The city’s inhabitants must grow immune to the beggars of SF.  Otherwise, you’d quickly go broke if you gave money to every person that approached you.  An easy way to avoid being approached was to avoid eye contact and make the homeless invisible.  But that seemed dehumanizing and I was hesitant to do it.

One guy was trying to sell a Christmas wreath.  Note it was late August.  But at least he had a product.  Something unique to offer.  Tony was curious to see how much it was and made eye contact with him.  Of course the guy jumped on the opportunity.  I asked him how much.  “Twenty-five,” he said.

“Sorry.  I don’t have it,” I said as we walked off.

It didn’t end there.  The guy followed us for two blocks.  We gave him an opportunity, a glimmer of hope to make a buck, and like a shark to blood, he went into a begging fury.  It was terrible.  One local told the guy to ‘leave them the fuck alone’.  I ended up sprinting for a block to escape money-lusting man.

The rest of the day we spent walking around the city.  I noticed gay men raping Tony with their eyes.  Man, it felt great to be an ugly cyclist.  Tony was getting all the attention.  And gay guys are very different than those in Atlanta.  The guys in SF are incredibly aggressive.  Due to the large gay population, I guess guys assume every other guy is gay.  Or the water in SF makes you really horny.

On the way back to Tony’s, we ran into a female friend of his.  He introduced me, and I had a lot of trouble with her name.  I kept repeating it and getting it wrong.  It was more than two syllables.  Something foreign.  Not like Jenny or Kelly.  Finally I just mimicked how it sounded in a mumble.  She smiled and nodded, obviously tired of repeating it.

They were making small talk when I interrupted with, “So how do you guys know each other?”

A moment of awkward silence.

“We know each other from work,” Tony said.

“Oh, you guys work together?” I asked, stupidly ignoring the uncomfortable body language given off by the two of them.

“No, not really,” Tony said.

Woops.  I quickly changed the subject, finally realizing they had a history (confirmed later by Tony as we walked off).

packing the bike

The next day Tony went to work, leaving me alone in his apartment.  I wanted Tony to take me with him to work, but I didn’t want to embarrass him again.

The day was spent breaking down my bike and trying to stuff everything in a bike box.  I called a few bike shops to try and find a spare bike box.  One shop wanted to charge me $15.

I biked a mile to the north end of the city to get a box from a shop.  There was no way I would be able to cycle back with the box in hand, so I had to walk the bike back.  Pain in the ass.  A lot of wind.  I hit a few pedestrians with the box by accident.

Boxing my bike and all my stuff took me 2.5 hours.  It would only cost me $80 to carry my bike on the plane, and I wanted to make sure I got all my stuff in the bike box to avoid additional luggage fees.  It was a little sobering to be packing up my bike after spending so much time on it.  The trip was actually coming to an end.

When Tony got home, he quickly noticed I got bike grease on the carpet.  White carpet.  Shit.  I felt like an asshole.  It was dark, and I had been careless.  I had tried packing my bike in his tiled kitchen, but I guess I had been a klutz.  I went to buy some carpet cleaning stuff.  Like a good guest, I watched Tony clean it.

tony got a job at KFC

My last night before returning home.  Tony and I decided to take a walk around the city.  He pulled out his solid black New Balance shoes and put on his swishy nylon pants (it was chilly that night).  And he put on a big shirt.  He looked ridiculous, but so did I.  I was wearing the same shirt three days in a row.  But I was OK with that.  I had gotten used to being an ‘ugly guy’.  I was just glad to have some ‘ugly guy’ company.  I even wished I was wearing convertible pants.

We walked a few blocks in silence.  Swish, swish, swish.  If Tony was talking, I couldn’t have heard him.  His pants were loud.  Swish, swish, swish.  Finally, Tony looked down at his shoes.

“Dude, I think I’m going to take these shoes back.  They look ridiculous,” he said, sticking his feet out.

I laughed.  A lot.  It was great that he was verbalizing something I didn’t want to say.  Who knew if he was really sensitive about his jet black New Balances.  He kept criticizing his ugly guy shoes.  “I look like someone that works at Burger King or KFC.  They wear solid black sneakers.  I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I bought these.”

I took a picture of him in front of his workplace.

We walked the city and looked at the ‘beautiful’ sky line lit by the downtown buildings.  Then we walked around Little Italy and got some pizza.  We laughed.  We smiled.  It might as well have been a romantic date.  We even got a fresh cinnamon bun at a bakery.  Smiling ugly guys at a bakery.  On the inside we were both really sad.  Tomorrow I would be gone.

We went back to Tony’s place and settled in for the night.  An ugly guy doesn’t kiss and tell.

airport

I had a few options to get to the airport.  A) Push my bike box to the BART, SF’s local rail system, and pay $12 to get to the airport.  B) I can pay for a zip car and beg Jen to drive me to the airport.  C) I could pay an airport shuttle $20-25 to take me and my bike to the airport.

I called Jen to get her input regarding the zip car option.  She said she was able to get a truck and had no problem taking me to the airport.  Awesome.  Very hospitable.

The next morning Jen drove over to Tony’s.  I said goodbye to Tony.  Long hug.  Jen and I drove off.

Two minutes later, we got on the interstate.  Bumper to bumper.  There was no way Jen was going to have the car back within the allotted hour, so she called Zip Car and asked for additional time.  Not possible.  Someone had the truck booked after her slot.  Damn.  We had less than 20 minutes to get to the airport and get the car back to the parking lot.  It wasn’t going to happen, and I didn’t want Jen to get charged an extra $50.  Looks like I’d be riding the BART to the airport.

A car in front of us slammed on brakes.  Jen did the same.  The power brakes kicked in and we slid to within an inch of the car in front of us.  I heard a loud collision behind us.  I looked back, but Jen was already speeding off to the exit.  The woman in the car behind us was waving her hands angrily in the air.

She sped to the BART station in the Mission District and dropped me off.  Jen slipped the zip car money back in my pocket and hugged me goodbye.

The bike box was heavy.  I resorted to sliding it on the cement.  I would later realize the chain ring had been poking out through the bottom of the box.  Three of the chain ring teeth were ground down to the nub.

I pushed my bike for what seemed like a mile to the airport terminal.  I was excited to get to the gate.

I boarded the plane and sat down.  I had nothing to read.  No video game system to play.  No DVD to watch.  I had my iPod, but I had already listened to the songs  hundreds, if not thousands, of times.  I was OK with sitting there.  Doing nothing.  I was mostly thinking about how to surprise my family.  The only person that knew I was coming home was my dad, who was picking me up at the airport.  The five hour flight passed quickly.

unnecessarily long ride

While staying at Curtis’s house, I had ordered two Schwalbe Marathon tires to replace my old bald ones.  I was anxious to get back on the bicycle after being in Novato for a few days, but I was happy I didn’t have to be paranoid about getting a flat on my final ride.  I said goodbye to Curtis and his friend Arden.

Google maps said that my ride would only be 25 miles if I took 101 the entire way.  Well, that wasn’t really an option since 101 was a 4-lane freeway.  ‘Bicycles Prohibited’ signs were located at the entrance ramps to the freeway.  When I approached the ramp and saw one of the signs, I shrugged it off and decided to wing it.  All I really had to do was stay off the freeway and cycle southeast.

Wrong.  What I didn’t realize was the amount of waterways I would have to cross before getting to the Golden Gate Bridge.  After getting through the town of San Rafael, I looked at my GPS and turned it off in frustration.  It was just a huge clusterfuck of roads without any hint of terrain.  The most annoying part of this ride was the huge ass hills that would pop out of nowhere.  I would rather go a mile out of my way than to cycle up 250 feet only to come speeding back down to the base of another hill.  Needless to say, that was exactly what happened for the first 20 miles.

Later I told myself ‘no more hills’.  If there was a hint of an upcoming incline, I would make a turn to avoid it.  This didn’t prove very advantageous to me, as I ended up cycling the entire peninsula of Tiburon, which added on another stupid 5 miles to my ride.  When I completed the ride around the peninsula, I had to come back…to where I started. Frustration was on the rise, and I had to make it to San Francisco before 6:30 PM.  That’s when my hosts, Jen and Harry, were leaving to go to a 48 hour film project screening.  I also wanted to cycle up to the headlands to get a good picture of the Golden Gate.  It was 3:30 PM.

head-on collision

After a few more frustrating miles, a local cyclist gave me some solid directions to the bridge.  I made my way on the crowded bike path towards Sausalito.  I was going about 14 mph when I approached a family on stupid looking rental bikes.  They were all in single file and following bike path etiquette until a young girl started swerving back and forth for her own enjoyment.

BAM!  She swerved right into my front-left pannier.  I shifted my body weight downwards to brace for the impact, but she was flung off my bike like a gnat.  Looking back, it’s pretty funny how hard she bounced off me.

“Shit!” I yelled as I squeezed my brakes.  I turned around to make sure she was OK.  She just stared at me, with her legs sprawled on the bike path.  She didn’t attempt to stand up.  I didn’t know if she was in shock or just stupid.  Her parents stood there and looked at me unapologetically, as if the collision was my fault.

Again, I looked at the girl and asked her if she was OK.  She didn’t speak but nodded her head.  Her dad walked over to help her up, and I looked at her mom.  In a heavy accent, she assured me her daughter was OK.  Then they all rode off.

I was confused.  Looking around, I was hoping to see an onlooker that was as confused as I was.  No one saw it.

I watched the dad lead his children further down the path on his stupid bicycle.  He had some flag sticking off of the back that was made out of tin foil.  The other kids started weaving back and forth on the path, clueless to what had just happened.  Bastard foreigners.

golden gate

I made my final push towards to the Golden Gate and cycled through the posh town of Sausalito.  There were lots of pedestrians and rental bike cyclists on the sidewalks.  Really smart cyclists.

A mile away from the bridge, the wind picked up and was blowing hard in my face.  What was frustrating was seeing people on rental bikes pass me.  “Oh yeah!  Well, I rode from Atlanta!” I wanted to tell them in an effort to preserve my ego.  As the bridge came into view, I made a right-hand turn and cycled up a 12% grade hill to the headlands.  It was hell, but I wanted that victory shot.

I stopped at a crowded viewpoint.  A few curious people laughed at my sign and asked me about my trip.  I had been riding with a message from my cousin Kelley Howard.

The message was ‘After 5200 miles:  useless arms, terrible tan line, dateless for 5 months, stupid sign’.  I guess Kelley doesn’t like me very much.  But I did get a lot of laughs during the ride, and throughout the day, I had cyclists asking me if I had really cycled that far.  It felt great to tell them it was my final ride.

One cyclist asked me if he could borrow my multi-tool.  In turn, he took a photo of me on my bike with the Golden Gate in the background.  I doubted he would be able frame it correctly…somehow cutting off my head or putting me directly in the middle of the frame, obstructing any view of the bridge.  The victory shot ended up pretty good.  Thanks guy!

I cycled back down to the bridge and made my way across it.  On the Golden Gate, there’s an entire sidewalk dedicated to cyclists.  I could see why.  There were a huge number of speeding cars to my left.  No shoulder.  I looked at the middle of the 101.  Insane.  No median or wall to stop two 65+ mph vehicles from a head-on collision.  Just a yellow line.  I later found out the middle lanes are called the ‘death lanes’.

I crossed the bridge and entered San Francisco.  In victory, I raised my hands into the air.  No one cared.

livin’ large

Curtis told me the previous night, “How long are you staying?  A few weeks?”

I laughed, overwhelmed by his generosity, and said,  “No, no…just a few days.”

“Man, you can stay as long as you want,” he assured me.  He made me feel very much at home, and it was nice to be in the company of a fellow Georgian.  Curtis told me he was going to have an ‘End of Summer’ cook-out for all his friends on Saturday, and he wanted to celebrate the end of my bike tour. His neighbor Cathy and her daughter Ashley came over to help us with some yard work to prep for the cook-out.

car show

Everyone in Curtis’s neighborhood is pretty sociable with one another.  Homeowners tend to congregate in the cul-de-sac while their kids play out in their front yards.  John, one of the neighbors, had an old car in a show that weekend, so we all went to downtown Novato to give him some support.

I walked up and down the street looking at cars, not really knowing what was what.  “Whoah, this is a 19XX model,” someone would say.  “Look at that finish!”  I would look, nod, and say ‘cool’.  I have zero knowledge about vintage cars (or all cars at all for that matter).  They’re just not interesting or impressive to me.  For me, they’re hunks of metal to get me from Point A to Point B.  I couldn’t care less what year it was manufactured or how many horses it has under the hood.

Curtis told me John’s car wins an award whenever it is entered into a contest.  Even though I knew jack shit about his car, it did look pretty sleek.

bolinas, a town of annoying kewl wannabe’s

Curtis felt like getting out of Novato and going on a day trip to somewhere interesting.  The destination:  Bolinas.  Bolinas is a town tucked away in a lagoon 10 miles to the northwest of the Golden Gate Recreational Area.  Its ocean waters are home to some of the highest concentrations of Great White Sharks in the world.  The people of Bolinas don’t like their place thought of as a tourist location, so the locals notoriously tear down street signs that lead to the town.  Jared, Bob’s roommate in Arcata, warned me that they’re pretty malicious to outsiders.  He told me that one time he camped on the Bolinas beach, and a few locals banged on his tent and yelled for him to get out of there.  He didn’t go anywhere.  They were just acting like dicks and trying to get a rise out of him.

Cole, Cathy, and her kids all came with us.  Trapped in the tiny back seat of Curtis’s SUV, I started getting nauseous on Route 1 once again.  Thankfully, Curtis let me drive the rest of the way.

We all went to the one restaurant in town.  The food was great, but everything was at a premium price because all the ingredients were organic.  And they were the only restaurant in town.  Just looking at the servers and the people at the restaurant reminded me of Atlanta’s Little Five Points, and not in a good way.  This was the ‘kewl’ spot in this area, where people wanted to look like an artisan, vagabond, or musician.  It was pretty annoying and came off as pretentious.

Our waitress was terrible and had a huge attitude.  I guess she has the liberty to treat customers like crap because there is nowhere else to eat in town.  That and she looked really cool and different.  Curtis has a big personality and likes to joke around with people, so naturally he joked around with the waitress when she came to the table.

“Let me guess your name…is it Bertha?” he said playfully.  I wasn’t sure how the name Bertha popped into his head.  When I think of that name, the big fat fish from Mario comes to mind.

“Oh, is that a cheesy way to find out your waitress’s name?” she said with her back to him.  She was getting some drink pitchers for another table, and Curtis was just trying to get her attention so that he could make a change to his order.

She had some other bitchy remarks throughout the rest of the meal and flaunted her unadultered pretentious attitude.  She brought Curtis wine when he asked for beer (I don’t know how that happened), and she insisted that he was in the wrong.

After dinner, we all went to the beach.  I wanted to sit down with some grungy hipsters and talk about the local indie music scene but later decided against it.

stalkers

Curtis’s friend Diane invited us to a chocolate party at her house.  Sounded good.  Jude and Sean, the stalking duo I stayed with in Eugene, Oregon, were headed back home from San Francisco and stopped by to see me in Novato.  Curtis insisted that they go to the chocolate party with us.

We walked into Diane’s house and saw a table full of chocolate.  Everything in some way involved chocolate in the recipe.  After a few hours of talking and eating, nearly everyone felt disgusting.  I felt like I had to have a salad just to let my body know I wasn’t in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that the headache subsided and I agreed to go play a game of tag outside with the neighborhood kids.  The game had some sort background story revolving around monkeys and gorillas.  I can’t really remember how it was relevant, but all I know is that I whooped some ass in tag.  I started to get really into it, and at one point I had to tag all four kids before they touched base.  The last kid was about to hit base with their foot, so I stupidly made a dive to touch their ankle.  I guess I forgot I was on asphalt.  The kids were laughing, and my hand was bleeding.  And I didn’t make the tag.

cookouts

That weekend, Curtis had a huge cookout for all his friends and neighbors.  About 80 people showed up, and Curtis was able to feed them all for around $100.  Pretty good.  Ribs, vegetables, potatoes, steaks, desserts, and drinks.  When people showed up, Curtis would announce them as if they were royalty.  When some of his shyer guests arrived, he would announce them and offer a piece of background information on them.  That way, his more talkative guests would have some starting point for conversation with them, leaving the shy guests unable to retreat to a corner and remain awkwardly silent.

Two days later, Curtis, his friend Arden, and I were all invited to another cookout at Jean-Luc’s house.  I felt like I was getting the royal treatment in Novato.  It was easy to talk to people once they found out where I was from and how I got to Novato.  It felt good to have a story define who you were in that moment.

There was a French kid there that thought giving peace signs was still cool.

browned

Later that night, I made my special dish.

Yo Curtis and Arden, you got BROWNED! (Note that Curtis is too busy for browning.  He’s all business.)

sad ride

After stuffing my face with a complimentary breakfast, I said goodbye to Cesar and headed east on Route 1.  My 45 mile ride that day would take me to Novato.  There, I was planning on staying with Curtis, a guy I had yet to meet.  Curtis owned a market back in Conyers, and when my parents went in to sell some of the vegetables out of the garden, they mentioned my bicycle trip to him.  He told them he’d open up the doors of his home to me if I traveled through.  When my parents told me this, I was in Montana and didn’t think too much of it.  I figured my route was probably far off from Novato, and the timing wouldn’t end up working out.  Well, my ride would actually take me by Curtis’s house on the same day he is flying in from Atlanta.  Destiny.

I was a little anxious about the day’s ride.  It was going to be my last big scenic ride without being in a huge metro area.  The ride was actually pretty nice.  There were farms nestled in between the steep hills of the bay area ‘desert’.  The road didn’t give me much of a shoulder because huge flowering weeds covered the side of the road.  It was painful not because of the weeds but because of pollinating insects that were colliding against my face.  I tried getting closer to the middle of the road, but Route 1 had too much traffic.  I closed my mouth and suffered through it.

“what the hell?”

The ride was a sad one for me.  I spent the first few hours thinking about the trip and what I had learned…about what Eoin and I had learned.  ‘Flow like water’.  I had been thinking about something to ride with on my bike board, but I didn’t want to ride with a joke.  I wanted to cycle with a message of substance, but those usually end up being embarrassing.  Oh well.  I wrote a meaningful message and dedicated it to Eoin.

I didn’t realize it, but when I was writing the on the board, I was standing beside a sign that had arrows pointing left and right.  I had already written the message:  Keep an eye out for purpose and flow like water.  That was the thing I wanted to keep with me after the bike tour.  It had relevance to nearly all the decisions I made on my trip.  And I believe it dictated a lot of Eoin’s decision-making as well.  The street sign only confirmed that I should ride with it.  Eoin, this one’s for you, my guy.  Sir Eoin of Grosch.

I still felt a little embarrassed about a “deep” message on my bike board.

While taking a picture, a lady in a car pulled up to make a turn.  She rolled down her window and yelled with a thick country accent, “What the hell?”

I walked up to the car and raised my eyebrows.  “What the hell are you doing?” she said.

I was confused.  Was this message to Eoin offensive to her?  Should I put my shirt back on?  “Oh, I’m just taking a picture,” I stuttered with a stupid boyish smile.

“Oh, I thought you were stuck.  OK then,” she said as she pulled back onto the highway.

What a weird way to go about asking someone if they needed help.  And why did she think my bike was stuck in grass?  It’s not like I was sinking into a mud pit or yelling from a Burmese tiger trap.  My bicycle was propped against a street sign.

flat on the freeway

After cycling through the town of Petaluma, I returned to Highway 101.  But the 101 didn’t look like the highway I was cycling on through Northern California.  This was a damn freeway with 4 lanes on each side.  I had looked at the map and didn’t remember an alternative route.  I decided to take a risk and quickly cycle the 9 miles to the Novato exit.  If I got caught, it probably meant a $100+ ticket.

Ever since getting my last flat in Oregon, I had become paranoid of either getting another flat or blowing out my tire.  I had stopped at some bike shops, but they didn’t have the Schwalbe Marathon tires I wanted.  I started thinking about all the shit I was riding over on the side of this dirty ass freeway.  It wasn’t but a few minutes later that I felt my wheel wobbling.  I didn’t want to look down because I knew what happened.  I had ridden through some glass 500 feet back, and it probably worked its way through the cracks in my bald tires.

I only had 1.5 miles to go until the exit.  I tried hopping off my bike, quickly pumping up my tire, and riding it until the tire was flat again.  I didn’t this until I was breathing hard from all the quick movements.  It was hopeless.

I pulled over next to a barbed-wire fence and threw down my helmet in rage.  The sun was beating down on my black jersey, and the sound of speeding cars was only pissing me off more.  It was deafening.

Still pissed off and dying in the heat, I slowly peeled off the tire.  As I was doing this, a car passed me and I heard a laugh.  This wasn’t a normal laugh.  The bastard took so much enjoyment out of my struggle that he had to laugh like Nelson off The Simpsons.

“HAAAA HAAAAA!” laughed the driver.

I ignored him.  As I went to go get a tube out of my bag, I looked over at the Holiday Inn across the access road and saw an employee enjoying my suffering.  What is wrong with these people?  During the entire flat repair, he just stared and sipped on a cold beverage.

Happy the repair was done, I got back on my bike and made my way into Novato.

homeless guy that has lots of sex

Curtis wasn’t flying into San Francisco until midnight, so I had to find somewhere to hang out for a few hours.  I cycled around town looking for a cheap place to eat.  I saw a shirtless guy covered in tattoos walking around, so I asked him where a  ‘cheap but good place to eat’ was.

“Dude, nothing is cheap around here, but man, there’s a $14 buffet down the street.  It’s off the damn chain,” he said.  He was putting off some cool guy’ vibes on me, trying to impress me with his kewl words from the 90′s.  He looked like he was from a Limp Bizkit video.  Keep rollin’, rollin’, rollin’, what?

“Oh, nothing else?” I asked, hoping to hear the words Pizza Hut.  I wanted a $5.99 buffet.

“Well, there’s the McDonald’s, but man, you should check out the buffet,” he said.

I felt pressured to go to this all-you-can-eat buffet simply because this guy kept pushing it.  I thanked him and cycled off, headed towards the McDonald’s.  $14 vs. $3.  McDonald’s won.

I propped up my kickstand-less bike on a tree and walked in.  Stares.  Lots of them.  I guess the people inside had never seen a guy in tight cycling shorts.  There were some 13-year-olds making fun of me in the table area.  Bastards.

As I was about to order, the Limp Bizkit guy walked in.  I was busted.  I felt guilty and ashamed for choosing McDonald’s over his recommendation.  He smiled at me knowing I had gone with the cheaper option.  I went on to make some terrible small talk.

“So are you from here?” I asked.

“Yeah, born and raised.  I am not working right now and live in the bushes by the water tower,” he said with confidence.  “Dude, you should check out the public pool after you eat.  I go there every day.  Lots of fucking hotties,” he said.  This guy had no filter.  Other people in line were blatantly eaves-dropping.  Or maybe it wasn’t eaves-dropping since he was talking so loudly.

“Oh, really?  That’s cool,” I said, feigning interest.  I didn’t want to go to a swimming pool with this guy.

“Man, And I’m still pullin’ in the hotties.  Tons of them at the pool.  I just bang ‘em out in the bushes.  Every day,” he said smiling.

This guy was Fred Durst.  He kind of looked like him too.  I exited conversation by going up to order, but he did some bumbling cool guy handshake with me before I left his company.

I ate my $3 extra-value meal and watched the McDonald’s manager kick out the group of loitering teens.  Ha Ha.  I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking coffee at Starbucks.

backyard stranger

Curtis had told me I could hang out in the backyard of his house until he got home.  I pushed my bike into his backyard and sat at a picnic table for three hours until he pulled up in his car.  The entire evening, I was paranoid that I wasn’t in Curtis’s backyard.  I had written down his address, but it had been quickly scribbled.  I was just waiting on someone to come outside and freak out about me being there.  That or a suspicious neighbor calling the cops on me.

I walked around to the front yard as Curtis and his two sons, Cole and Curtis Jr., hopped out of the car.  Curtis was pumped to see me, even though I had never met him.  He instantly made me feel at home and showed me the bed I’d be sleeping in.  Awesome host.

Curtis had worked for Food Network hosting his own TV show.  Evidently he was a pretty big food celeb.  I could understand why.  He had a pretty big personality and was incredibly charismatic.  A few of his accomplishments included having a show on PBS and publishing a book.

We spoke a while about organic gardening and his market back in Conyers.  After an hour of converstaion, he insisted I go to bed and get some rest.  “We can rap in the morning,” he said.