But not before we found out that our tent floats... The forecast looked pretty grim that day but there was a campground with a hot tub a mere 20 miles down the road so it didn’t really matter if we got wet. We pulled into camp in the early afternoon, set up camp and spent the next three hours soaking in this glorious hot tub as the skies opened and absolutely unloaded. I can’t remember if we talked about going to check on the tent, it was obvious neither of us were willing to leave the hot tub.
By the time we went back to our site to start dinner it was dark, we were prunes and our tent was floating in a newly created pond. When we set up our tent three hours earlier we took a few minutes to scope out an area that wouldn’t collect water, we’ve had a couple experiences of waking up to a small pool of water because we pitched our tent in a low-lying area and I would like to think we’ve learned our lesson. Wrong.
Just looking for pegs
My heart sank when I saw our tent in a solid 3-4 inches of water, I carefully opened the vestibule to asses the damage and my bags floated out… The insoles of my shoes were just poking out of the water, clearly my attempt to dry them out did not work out so well. I couldn’t bring myself to look inside before we picked the whole thing up and brought it to higher ground.
The inside of the tent was dry, miracle! The sun came out the next day and it hasn’t rained since.
In other news, my rear hub started to sound a little grindy 100+ miles ago, I thought it would make it to Santa Cruz where we planned to take a few days off. Wrong again. Within a few miles of leaving San Francisco my hub went from constant nails on a chalk board screaming to silent to dead. That was the moment that one of the sealed bearing units failed and turned my hub into a blender full of metal bits… Lovely. So we carried on.
In other news, my rear hub started to sound a little grindy 100+ miles ago, I thought it would make it to Santa Cruz where we planned to take a few days off. Wrong again. Within a few miles of leaving San Francisco my hub went from constant nails on a chalk board screaming to silent to dead. That was the moment that one of the sealed bearing units failed and turned my hub into a blender full of metal bits… Lovely. So we carried on.
30 miles later we were in Half Moon Bay, my hub was done and we were trying to figure out if it would be easier to hitch hike or take a bus the rest of the way to Santa Cruz. We spent the night in Half Moon Bay, checked out the one bike shop in town the next morning and to my surprise they had the bearings I needed (none of the shops we checked out in San Francisco had them). Miracle! We biked to Santa Cruz and have been hanging out with friends ever since, sooooo nice.
A HUGE THANK YOU to:
Tara and Patrick and Everest – For looking after us in Santa Cruz, taking us sailing, feeding us, and always making sure we were always fully caffeinated.
Tom – For giving us a terrible tour of Napa, a terrible fancy dinner, a terrible conversation, a terrible day really :)
Rob – Our Warm Showers host in San Francisco. Not only did we have a beautiful place to stay in the heart of the city but Rob’s two cats (Brad & Debbie) were over the top snugglers
(Author: Nyle).
Tara and Patrick and Everest – For looking after us in Santa Cruz, taking us sailing, feeding us, and always making sure we were always fully caffeinated.
Tom – For giving us a terrible tour of Napa, a terrible fancy dinner, a terrible conversation, a terrible day really :)
Rob – Our Warm Showers host in San Francisco. Not only did we have a beautiful place to stay in the heart of the city but Rob’s two cats (Brad & Debbie) were over the top snugglers
(Author: Nyle).