Day 19: First warm showers!
Today is going to be a short day relatively speaking so I slept in and had a lazy morning. Goodbyes are interesting on the road. Hard to know if Goodbye means see you in a few hours, or a few days or we will never see each other again. Up until now our ad hoc group from the last few nights (Spanish guy and German couple) would meet in the same campgrounds each night but that will change tonight. The German couple are taking a few days to rest at a warm showers, the Spanish guy is taking a rest day and I am cycling onto Crescent City in California where I will take a rest day or two at different warm showers. So Goodbye to the German couple felt closer to the 2nd or 3rd type of Goodbye. Realized I would probably see the Spanish guy Jacob in the warm showers the following night so that is a type 1 or 2 goodbye. So the occasion called for a group selfie. These are not natural for me to take but I need to start thinking about taking them more with people.
Cycling today was short and fine. I made the mistake of cycling in shorts today without sun cream and got badly sunburned on my legs. The highlight of today was passing through the state border into California and taking the compulsory selfie at the “welcome to California” sign.
California welcomed me to the state with a puncture. Some little wire pierced the tire and tube. So I just replaced the tube with a spare and kept going. Taking a rest day tomorrow so will patch the 2 spare tubes tomorrow. Punctures are still novel enough to me that they are still interesting. But I know I will soon grow tired of them. Sometime before San Diego I will switch to tubeless as it will be needed for Mexico and want to have some experience on tubeless before passing into Mexico.
Arrived at my warm showers, which is like a community center type place next to a church. I met Katie, my host, who is a lovely, warm and welcoming 80 year old woman who showed me around and gave me tons of useful info for the next couple of days. I originally only asked to stay overnight but she said I could stay an extra night (or two) as rest days which I will do. She has 3 rules. I needed to put a pin on a map to show where I am from. This map has pins all over the world of people she has hosted which is pretty cool. Her 2nd rule was I have to sign a little booklet. Her 3rd rule was I need to pay the fee. Warm showers are supposed to be free and voluntary so I was a little taken aback. But then she said the fee was a hug. Fee paid, I settled in.
Tomie, an American tourer from the last campsite, arrived a little after me. We cycled somewhere for dinner and a singular pint in a brewery after and had the good chats.
Not only did I cross my 2nd state today, I also passed the 1000 kms mark of the tour. Granted, this is still only 2-3% of the way to Ushuaia but we take those little wins.
I am looking forward to my rest day tomorrow. Plan on doing some bike maintenance stiff and laundry. I think Jacob (Spanish guy) and Cris (from a week or so ago) will both stay at this warm showers tomorrow night.
