I woke up with silence no noises from around me what so ever, except there was this voice screaming in my head. It felt like there was a knife in my leg as I attempted to move. The day before while biking I injured my knee and now I can barely walk. I was on One World Week and was biking the California coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego, I had no bed, or electronics for that matter either, so the days went by slowly and with not too much to do. I had trouble walking, which led to no more riding the bike so I stayed in the support van the rest of the days.
I wake up every morning at 0600 for school and that is what I am used to so I normally woke up before anyone else that was in my tent. A sharp pain also does the trick for waking me up so that might be another reason for getting up so early every morning. Any ways, I got up, got dressed and ready for the day and by then others started to get up as well. Next came the checking of causalities from the heavy rain and winds from the night before. The tents said keeps you dried guaranteed but every one of them leaked and people would get soaked. Once people are up and out the chaperones would put out the good old hearty breakfast of a bagel and sometimes if I was lucky some cream cheese too. Once finished with the bagels, we would start packing up cloths then rolling sleeping the bags and then taking down the tents. The bike route would be planned and different speed groups would slowly start leaving.
The van rides were good, better than going home or having to do a different OWW. Before we even got into the car and started the engine, the chaperone got a call that someone had a flat and they needed our assistants. We had to drive the long way around and drop of the equipment to fix the tube. After that just like all other mornings whoever was driving was in dire need of coffee, so off to a coffee shop we went. This like the other mornings took time because we did not know the area and would get lost trying to find one. Next was following the three different groups and see if they had any other problems. Once the bikers got on a bike path inaccessible by car we took off for the next camp site. Not knowing the next place either made this a difficult thing to find. The directions were always off or bad so wondering around for an hour or so was normal by then. We found the place another 30 miles down the coast from where we were looking around 1300. We pulled in however check in was not until 1400 so we had to go get lunch and wait a while before coming back. Lunch was at a little taco shop right down the street. Since I’m doing a research on fish tacos I decided to order a fish taco for lunch and they may have also been doing a special where they were very cheap. The fish taco was good but could have used more sauce, but I’m not going to complain too much because the price was good. We got back in the car looked at the time and realized that it only took twenty minutes to eat and we still had forty minutes to kill. Since it was practically on the beach we went across the street and watched some surfers and some people with fancy equipment taking readings in the water until 1400.
We were such a big group that we used three campsites side by side so when we set up camp it took a while and a lot of space. Since I couldn’t bike I helped put up tents for a while and then went down with a few friends and checked what the gift shop had to offer. A nice deck of playing cards were bought and then used for the rest of the night. We played lots of a card games the main one I have no idea how to spell but its “Filipino poker” says Law, some go fish, texas hold ‘em, and one other game that also has a weird name.
It wasn’t too hard to go without electronics for a day when you are camping and you didn’t bring any electronics for not being able to charge it and fear of it getting water damage. The thing that would have been most useful was a computer or smart phone to be able to track the weather however the campsites had rangers that would tell us. I didn’t really need to talk to anyone outside the trip so communication was easy, just talk to people that were near you. I found it very easy the only thing was difficult was I didn’t bring in ipod and music would have been nice for the entire trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment