DAY 2 - 93 Miles to Carpinteria

Hey everyone,

Security let me sleep in a chair at Union Station in LA last night. Security helped watch my bike while I slept. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me sleep on the floor and stretch out so I curled up in the chair. I also slept with my leg over my bike all night so nobody would take it...just to be safe. I woke up at 7AM and took off from there around 730am. This was the worst part of my day.....slow traffic...lots of stop lights....took me an hour to go 12 miles to get back to the coast from Union Station. Then everything went good until I hit a big rut on the trail by Hueneme. Tried to gradually go over it but my tire got caught and I went down. Scraped up my shoulder a bit but otherwise ok. Bent up my rack on my bike a bit too.

Stopped 93 miles up the coastline at Carpinteria, which is about 5 miles south of Santa Barbara. Set up camp at a State Park here. Cost me $5.00. I took the bike into town and stopped at a bike shop there to fix my rack. Then looked for a place to eat supper. For breakfast today...I ate Taco Bell, for lunch I had Burger King....for Dinner...Taco Bell again. Wanted to go to Subway but they had no AC outlets by the tables that I could use to charge my phone.

Finally took a shower tonight at the campsite. Shower runs on quarters. pretty funny when I ran out of water after 2 quarters and then had to fumble around to try and find my other quarters, and then find where to plug them into the machine again while I had soap in my eyes and couldn't see anything. Shower cost me a buck!

Weather is really nice here...a little cool tonight. A pretty sweet sunset here too.

Talked to a few bikers on the trails today. When asked where I was going...I would say VanCouver and some of them thought I was crazy. I also got asked "where did you start". I told them San Diego. They then asked how many days have you been riding. I said 2. Again...some thought I was crazy.

Have been told that there is a 15 mile section of Highway 101 closed because of the fires...somewhere north of Santa Barbara. Planning on riding in to Santa Barbara tomorrow morning and then will spend the July 4th holiday there to watch fireworks. Will have to ask people there where the detour is to figure out how to get around that closed road area.

Other than the slow traffic in LA and my little crash.....I had a really good day! 224 miles down!!! It will be much slower going north of Santa Barbara with the elevations and potential detour.

Will update you on my 4th of July tomorrow night.