Goleta, April 13

Larry between Lompoc and 101

Looking back up 101 toward the northbound tunnel from a rest stop

A longhorn and his harem. Rudy had to shout and whistle to get the longhorns attention

Woke to bright sunshine and visions of the scary topo map for today's ride to Goleta/Santa Barbara. Checked out of our motel and rode a few blocks to Carrows for breakfast. Chatted with one of the ROMEOS who were eating in the room in the back. ROMEOS, Retired Old Men Eating Out; Rudy and I could have joined them, but then we would have to retire. We headed out of Lompoc with leg warmers, jerseys, no jackets and headed up the hill. A delightful ride, wonderful weather, a bit of a tail wind, good shoulder to ride on, long steady climb to the top, wonderful views, green hills and then two miles of 7 % down hill to the junction of Hwy 1 and Hwy 101. I put my vest on before the downhill as it is cool and I had worked up a sweat on the way to the top. On one of the long up hill pulls, Rudy had a hitchhiker. A Lady Bug landed on his leg at the bottom of the hill and when he got to the top, she flew off without so much as a thank you. ("She" flew off. Are all Lady Bugs referred to as she?) Rudy was feeling good today, even stopped to help a snail over the water running down the side of the road. To much sun. We stopped at a rest stop soon after getting on 101. The north bound route takes you through a tunnel. Glad we missed that,as it gets very noisy sharing a tunnel with a couple of 18 wheelers. Chatted with a couple from Savannah, GA who have cycled the west coast, Italy (a few times) and have taken a wonderful bike and barge trip ending in Amsterdam. He was 73 and his wife about the same. Said his knees bother him now, to many marathons. (His wife looked at me and said, "one".) There is no place to eat between Lompoc and Goleta, so en route we ate a couple of apples, some nuts and fruit and I ate Helen's hard boiled egg. Still, we were hungry when we hit Goleta and stopped at Baja Fresh for a couple of great salads. 48.24 miles for the day. Rudy's maximum speed for the day: 37.2 mph; Larry's: 35.6. You have to love good roads, little traffic, down hills with tail wind. Our average for the day was 12.5 mph which we feel is pretty good with the long climbs we had.