Wandering Wheels - 11 January 1991

Yet one more wonderful riding day. It seems that God is truly smiling on our trip. First thing today (worth noting anyway) was the devotion this morning. Joel talked about how so often we can worship the creation and not the Creator. I've fallen into that on this trip. I've not been keeping up with my bible reading and prayer. But that devotion helped knock me back on track.

Today's ride wasn't quite as spectacular as the past few days on the coast, but it certainly made up for it in speed. We cruised at a steady pace for about 15 miles when we decided to stop for a while in a small town called Cayusco, rather quaint, right along the coast. We ended up spending about half an hour there, walking on the pier, playing on the playground, watching the dogs chase birds on the beach and shopping at some of the little stores around town. Then we picked up and rode about 8-9 miles more to Morro Bay.

Most of today's riding was done in crunch formation and I got to break wind for most of the day, which was a wonderful feeling (let the jokes begin....). Riding like that is a lot more fun than being in a single file line 'cause we're more able to hear and talk to each other (plus it's easier to sing old TV theme songs). When we arrived in Morro Bay, we asked one of the locals where the best place to eat was and he pointed us to a little place called Bay City Grill. It was the best! The burgers were 1/2 lb and the drinks were tall, cold and bottomless. And the place itself! You couldn't ask for a better atmosphere. Salt and pepper in Corona bottles, pictures of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and The Beatles on the wall, a jukebox and MTV on the wall made it the perfect little eatery. Well worth the price.

From there we moved down the road to (the lights went out here, so I'm writing in the morning) a natural history museum and spent some time looking at the exhibits. Then the Naz went on while Taylor had a class lecture at the museum. We rode about 20 miles to San Luis Obispo (I knew we'd finally get there). On the way we passed a rather deserted military base (most are in the Persian Gulf) and a "men's colony," a rather polite term for prison. Then when we arrived in San Luis we stopped at a bicycling/running/swimming store. Our whole group bought matching biking hats (the guy even cut us a deal) and Randy bought a LOT of biking gear (like a loud pair of tights).

Then we got showers (two says in a row!) at the local YMCA and after getting all clean, we had to bike a mile or so to the First Baptist church. We were going to have class, but the bus, with Randy's notes, didn't arrive until about dinner, so we had it afterwards. We studied group decisions and did a very interesting activity on types of decision making and learned an important lesson: an average group makes better decisions than the average person. Outside of class I realized that being part of a group doesn't mean that you agree on everything. For example, Chip Wall doesn't care about conserving water since he doesn't live here. And this morning I was elected group conscience when I wouldn't allow Ed to steal a USA Today. Guess that's the way groups work, though. You put aside differences to work together.

(aside: on the beach last night, Randy made an interesting observation: you can't have a passion for life if you're always worried about where your next shower is coming from. Think about it) Æ

Tunes: ub40 - red red wine†