Central City Market

A mall in Santa Maria is an unlikely place at best to eat a multi course winemaker dinner, but the owner of this mall likes good food and so enticed some first rate talent to run three restaurants and a catering operation within the mall in a town better known for growing strawberries than crafting gormet food. The evening started with canapes and a sweet sparkling wine in a roped off area in the atrium of the mall. Odd location for appetizers - it felt a bit like being a rare tropical fish in an aquarium with the citizens circulating around us as we awkwardly sipped and supped. Once we moved into the dining room things relaxed a bit into the more settled routine of winemaker dinners. There was nothing routine about the food and wine pairings. The chef, Ryan and his staff did a superb job with this. All the food was excellent and the three, yup, three main courses were all rediculously delicious. As good as the fish dish was with the baby carrots nicely setting off our luxurious 2008 Tolosa Block 569 Chardonnay, my favorites were the meat courses. The first of which was turkey done traditionally including light and dark meat, gravey, stuffing, potatoes and cranberry sauce paired with our 2008 Estate Pinot Noir. This light jazzy Pinot was lit up by the food and vice versa - a nice preview of Thanksgiving pleasures to come. Despite being completely stuffed at this point I somehow managed to eat all of the final course a NY steak served on a bed of spetzel and wild mushrooms. The 2008 Tolosa Estate Syrah helped ease the pain and was an excellent foil for this rich dish. Out of embarassment at my own gluttony, I won't even talk about the heavenly pasteries and the Viognier dessert wine that ended the evening. The fact that I can't even remember the last time I ate so much that my stomach hurt speaks volumes about the quality of this restaurant.

Two meals

On Saturday last at Heidi's instigation we went to a Ramadan "breakfast" just after sundown. This had been organized by pastor Jane Voight in her continuing effort to make better understanding between the christian and Muslim communities. Given my atheistic even antireligious philosophy this was a stretch for me. The kids were trepidatious as well. When we arrived at the community center a bit on the early side we felt a bit awkward. All the women were in headscarves and some of the men in traditional dress. We say no one we knew. The room gradually filled up and one of the young men called the other men to prayer. They retired to another room and when they were done the meal began. The men forming a separate line from the women, and the tables pretty much gender segregated as well. The men's line moved faster and I guided Jack to a seat next to two cute boys knowing that Zoie would like sitting across from them. They were brothers from Dubai and were quite curious about what had brought us to this meal. We talked quite amiably for a while and when the girls joined us it was even more pleasant. The leader of the local mosque, the father of a friend of Heidi's who is a professor at Cal Poly sat across from me and we had lively and civilized conversation over the meal. Later as the meal was breaking up we met Zaki who was there with his family. He invited us to join him at his eponymously named waffle restaurant south of town for breakfast the next morning.
We had always been curious about this little place just off the Los Osos Valley Road exit from 101, and now we had a personal invitation to visit. We got there about 9:00 the next morning Zaki and his wife and kids run it, and the first thing they said was "We were beginnig to worry you wouldn't come." The meal that followed was wonderful and so was the hospitality we were shown. We now have new friends and a new place for breakfast in the morning.

D2M day seven

This final day was almost entirely down hill. We started with a couple miles of climbing to the 11,000+ pass. Chris and Mike D. cut off for the single track option, but I had had enough of that nonsense and was looking forward to bombing some serious fireroad action. I was not disappointed. Miles and miles of sweeping gravel roads with fantastic views followed the pass, then a few miles of climbing on pavement. What was supposed to have been swooping single track had been cut into very primitive fireroad and then a final section of fireroad down into Moab. Thomas and I did almost the entire day side by side and it was with some elation that we glided down into Moab and the end of our adventure

D2M day six

This day for me was the hardest. The hut in Paradox Valley was hot all night and short on fresh food. The heat had killed my appetite as well as my sleep. The day started frustratingly with my handlebar bag shooting off the front of the bike in the first hundred yards. Everyone had the bit between their teeth so they left me to my own devices to try and repair it. Like much modern shit it was basically unfixable, but I wasted 45 minutes trying to anyway before throwing it into the sagebrush in frustration. A couple hours later I remembered that there was $100 in cash in one of the zippered pockets and that pissed me off even more. There was a four mile "wall" to start that really hurt. I caught Mike R. about 3/4 of the way up, but the rest were long gone. I waited for Mike at the top. Subsequently I waited at a couple more intersections without him catching me up. I didn't have an odometer after the first day and being stuck behind the main group and ahead of Mike I had to navigate strictly by the verbal directions. Luckily they were good and after tons of climbing back up into alpine terrain I managed to find the final hut without getting off track. Even with odometers most everyone else got off track so I got lots of props for my sense of direction - more like just good at following directions. The last hut was beautifully sited and freshly stocked with food so we had a good time on our final night.

D2M day five

This last day in the desert was no one's favorite. All were tired from the crappy night's sleep and besides the usual challenges of riding we opted for a "technical" route down off the mesa into Bedrock that was basically unridable even by the best of us. For me it was barely walkable, and the loaded bike had to be carried down it to boot. We were all stoked though with anticipation of the Bedrock store where cold drinks and ice cream would be available. You can't really appreciate ice until you've been without it for days. We were in very hot country here as well. Imagine everyone's disappointment when we found the store shuttered and for sale. We racked out in the shade to rest for the final push to the hut - about 8 miles of flat hot roads. When we got there we found it poorly supplied and very hot - big bummer. It didn't cool that night and my sleep deficit kept growing - not a good sign with a big big climbing day coming on the morrow.

D2M day four

This jaunt half way across the desert basin to the La Sal Mtns ended up being my undoing. We started out being scattershot with hail and we could see the thunderstorm that produced it just ahead of us. Luckily the day held dry more or less. We came down into a little truckstop and I had a couple huge glasses of Coke on ice that were so good as well as some cinnamon roll. We had eaten breakfast just before so we weren't really hungry, but the change of pace and the ice was nice. Shortly after this stop we hit the mother of all mud holes and it took a long time to get the muck off the bikes and get them rideable again. I was tired from yesterday, but didn't know just how spent till I sat down crosslegged to pry the dirt from my shoe cleats and felt my left aductor muscle pop - bummer. I slogged on having a very tough day. After what seemed an eternity the hut arrived. Mike Richmond and Thomas had a hand in unkinking me and it would have been far worse without their ministrations. It's not every bike trip that has a certified massuese along. We were on the edge of a huge canyon in slick rock type country - spectacular views and an abandoned uranium mine next door! All would have been great except huge winds blew up during the night and kept everyone awake. The snoring and farting of 5 guys in a small cabin is bad enough for a light sleeper, but the howling and banging of the wind kept everyone awake for hours.

Dawn patrol on Mt. Hamilton

I spent the last couple days selling wine in the South Bay and knew that if I showed some discipline I could get in an ascent of Mt. Hamilton (the giant of the Bay Area) before my first appointment of the day. I booked a hotel reasonably close by and set the alarm for 5:30. A quick stop at a coffee shop for a quad latte and banana bread and by 6:40 I was clicked into the pedals and starting up the 22 mile climb to the summit of the highest mountain in the SF Bay Area. This is actually three distinct climbs seperated my two short downhills. The first section is roughly 10 miles of climbing and takes you up to the ridge above San Jose. It took me about 40 minutes to climb this. A quick descent brings you into a valley containing Grant Park and then another 3 miles climb follows that. After a very short descent the final 7 mile climb to the top follows. As I had a 10:30 appointment I promised myself that I would turn around at 8:30 no matter where I was on the climb, but 8:30 found me within a mile of the summit so I pressed on and hit the top at 8:35. While I'd taken the whole climb at a pretty moderate tempo I will admit to pouring on the coals a bit in the last couple miles in my attemp to hit the top. My legs felt good the entire way and it while hard it was not really that difficult compared to other times I've done this climb. Despite its length the grades rarely go abouve 6% so once you find your comfort gear you can pretty much spin it to the top - fitness helps. The hour long 200+ corner descent back down was a handful. The pavement is only smooth on the bottom ten miles. The rest is chuckholed and gravel strewn so real caution must be exercised to keep it on the road. I was back to the car right on schedule and arrived at the first account showered shaved and on time.

M2D day three

This leg of the trip took us down from high elevation to the relatively lower elevations of the basin where the air would be a bit thicker. It was scheduled to be a net loss of elevation of 5-6,000 feet so it looked to be a recovery day more or less. Turned out to be a lot less for me anyway. We started the day with a bit of climbing but then hit the first downhill section - roughly 2 miles of very rocky double track. I quickly fell to the back, never being a big fan of getting my fillings rattled loose by baby heads. Luckily we got on smoother gravel roads for most of the descent and some 40mph hilarity followed. At the bottom of the descent I noticed that the pack had bounced loose from the rear rack of my bike. Worse still was the realization that my credit cards and drivers license were in that pack. With little choice I began climbing up the roads I had just bombed down wondering if I would even see the pack as it could easily have bounced into the weeds and we had been descending for a good 10 miles at this point. My best guess was that it had come off in the first very rocky two miles, and sure enough with about a mile left to the top there was my pack sitting in a puddle in the middle of the trail. I've never been so happy to see the bright yellow of a rain jacket before. The ride back down was just as much fun if not more so, as it was starting to rain a bit. Mike Richmond had very generously waited for me and was camped out under a sunshade at the 18 mile point. We still had another 15-20 miles to go most of it on rolling ranch roads, but there was a final climb into a head wind to finish the day. I had good legs and that was the only salvation. Our cabin was on the edge of a rocky arroyo, quite different than the alpine scenery of the prior two. This was juniper, sage and horney toad country. Everyone slept like the dead.

D2M - day two

Waking up to a big breakfast in an alpine meadow at 11,000 ft does wonders for the psyche no matter how battered the body or depleted the physical reserves from the day before. The hyper hungry mosquitos and horse flies were an added incentive for getting in motion rather quickly. We rolled out under perfect weather conditions, and swore to eachother that the standard route was going to be our plan for the remainder - no more unridable single track. There were three big climbs over the course of the day, and two wicked fast descents tieing them together. My plan was to eat something every hour on the hour in order to keep the energy level up. This seemed to work as I crested the first climb a bit behind Chris, dropped everyone like a bad habit on the second climb, and after waiting for Thomas climbed the last one with him. Our cabin was at high elevation once again and had stunning views of the mountain passes we'd climbed over the day before, which was a cool bonus. Thomas discovered a patch of wild strawberries a few yards away that we all samples the next morning. I don't think I've ever tasted a more intense strawberry in my life.

Durango to Moab the hard way day one.

It was with considerable trepidation that I began the San Juan Huts ride with four companions. We had arrived in Durango a day or so early to get acclimated, loosen up our legs and put our gear in order, but the morning of our departure the reality set in as we pedalled off onto the single track at above 11,000 feet for the first leg of seven days of mountain biking and six nights in wilderness huts. In our short sighted enthusiasm we opted for the "alternate" route that used the Colorado Trail instead of the standard fire road route. This turned out to be a bad decision. The trail even in the best of weather conditions was barely traversable by bike and during the mountain monsoon season we were in the day Quickly evolved into a 20 mile hike a bike. I doubt we rode more than 30% of the trail and the rest of the time was spent lifting and dragging the bike over mud, roots and rocks. The swiftest of us took more than 10 hours to get to the first hut and the slowest was rescued off the trail and driven the last few miles in the dark. A rough start to say the least. The owner of the huts who helped us out also rescued two hikers off the same trail so it was a wet, cold, and tired group of eight that bunked down the first night. Several times during the day I thought to myself, "What the hell have I gotten myself into?"
The stunning vistas and the fields of alpine flowers were a beautiful consolation for the arduous day, it must be said. My pal Mike Richmond went on his head hard and had the helmet bruises on his forhead for the remainder of the trip. Mike Dunn and I both went down hard at least once on his part and several times on mine and had the bruises to prove it.