[Herewith are my last journal entries, mostly verbatim instead of summarized, as I have been wont to do before.]

27 June 2008

Spent last night tossing, turning & hunting a little mouse that was munching on the pop-tart I’d gotten myself for the morning. [The rest of the story: I was mortified that it kept making noise, thinking it was keeping the other guys up. Nope, it turns out, just me. The cheeky little bastard had kept quiet and still when I picked up my bike helmet (which had the pop tart in it) to see if it was under there, not thinking to look inside. Eventually, carrying the helmet out of my room to put it out of reach, the little pest dropped out through a vent and ran for it.]

And just as I was getting ready to go, I saw I had a flat–and I’d managed to leave my tire irons behind somehow!

But I’m in good spirits now. A hostel staffer gave me his tire irons and I fixed the flat handily. The bead jack worked perfectly too.

So I’m at a KOA campsite in Pescadero with a restaurant where I await a huge salad with salmon. [Ed. note: these "campsites" are so loaded with luxury they might as well call them "split-log hotels." I have nothing against travelers enjoying those amenities, but why call them "campsites?"] Tempting to go with the burger & fries option as I’m starved but some vegetable matter does sound appealing.

I also seem to have mislaid my sharpener–I may be forced to return to a pen! Oh, wait, there it is in my pocket. [95% of all my stress in life is summed up right there.]

The Internet at the hostel was unusably bad. Satellite, so impossibly slow, and the interface seemed to be 100% web-based and actively evil. When I tried to load up Skype, the machine seemed to be trying to bring up Hotmail (?!).

Oh, and again with the headwind today! Not nearly as annoying on the trike, but still I can even verify it now, lots of tall grasses, pointed directly at me. Sheesh.