Day 32: Rest day - Planning for Big Sur + playing Baduk
Slept in, then walked along fisherman’s wharf and some parks toward the sports basement and did some minor shopping there. Most of the shopping I did here I included in yesterday’s entry. I did forget to mention I got cycle gloves tho. I find I am getting very very sunburned but just on the back of my hands. This makes sense given this is the only part of my body that is really exposed given how I grip my handle bars. So the cycle gloves should hopefully help with this.
There is a pretty big roadblock in a few days time for which I need to plan for now. There has been a massive landslide in big sur. There were rumors of cyclists waiting until the workers finished for the evening and then sneaking across the landslide. However, the landslide has since gotten worse and cyclists online are saying it is properly impassable. A cyclist even died some months ago trying this. So this is a no go.
So that leaves 2 options. First is to cycle the 101 highway. However, this highway over this section is basically a motorway and there seems like there are many reports saying that these few days of cycling are particularly dangerous. If you have done this section before, can you reach out and let me know how it is? I do know some people planning to cycle this, so it is possible. Just don’t know if I want to.
The 2nd option is to take a bus and skip this section. This will probably mean getting a bus from somewhere like Salinas to maybe SLO (tho this bit I haven’t researched yet… Baby steps). Skipping big sur in this way and then following the rest of the book recommendations means I am less than 2 weeks from San Diego and the Mexico border. Haven’t fully decided yet but am leaning towards option 2. I have a few days to make this decision.
For those that don’t know me, I am an avid player of the ancient Chinese game of Go (also called Baduk). Shout out to the Irish Go Association and the Galway Go Club! After a quick Google, I learned that the San Francisco Go club meets 4 times a week and meets tonight. I wouldn’t be around for any of the other nights so decided to just show up and see if I could get a game in. After getting a bus to Japan-town and finding the club, I met 2 guys playing a game. One guy was a 3 kyu and the other was a DDK, though their names now escape me. I think they said that tonight was DDK night. Anyone who has played me in the last 6 months or so knows I have an obsession with dual 5-5 point openings which is very unusual but I think is fun. Had a nice enjoyable moyo game with the 3 kyu who told me a little about the Go club, which is the oldest in North America! I am going to try to get to as many Go club meetings I can during the rest of the trip, when the timing of rest days in cities works out with the meet ups days.
Tomorrow is another rest day.