The Flume Trail And My First Hillbillies

Under the suggestion of the bartender at the Gold Hill Saloon, I drove back towards Lake Tahoe and went to Spooner Lake to rent a bike and ride the Flume Trail. The first part of the trail is a 4 mile ride that climbs 1000ft in pretty soft gravel. Between being out of shape and riding in high altitude, I found myself extremely out of breath and walking the last 1/4-1/2 of the trail. Once at the top, I got a beautiful view of Marlette Lake, an almost untouched lake that was a crystal clear blue.

After getting to the edge of Marlette lake, the actual Flume Trail begins. The flume trail was the most technical trail I have ever ridden (which isn't really saying all that much) and easily the most scenic. The trail wrapped the round the top of a mountain which rounded Lake Tahoe (as seen above) though the view was hazy due to the fires in Yosemite and elsewhere. When I got back to the car (a van picks you up) and ate, I didn't get on the road till 3 pm which would make it tough to make it to Oregon the same day.

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Passing through Reno I stumbled on a AAA office and stopped in to get a camping guide. In looking through the guide I found Milford, CA to be the best bet for a camping spot. I couldn't find a place to buy food along the sometimes desolate HWY 395 but, in learning from my past decisions, I decided it was better to find a place and let food figure itself out.

Driving along the 395, I see a sign for a state run campground and ventured 2.5 miles to the west. Half of a mile from the campground, I see a sign for a road closure. For some reason I ignore this sign and continue along the freshly groomed gravel road. I get to the campground and the entry gate is open, proving to me that the road closure sign MUST have been wrong.

As I enter, I pause at the bulletin board to see if there are announcements. None. There is a payment receptacle but no bulletin regarding cost and no envelopes for payment which is strange. None the less, I see an old bet up truck through some trees and decide to go see who's there. I round the corner and make out 3 old big trucks with wooden side wall extensions to make the walls of the truck as tall as the roof of the cab.

I spot the bathroom, which looks like a fancy hole in the ground (vaulted), which is not surprising as the AAA guide already warned me of no showers or flushing toilets. An overweight woman with brown hair emerges from the toilet with a small yappy black dog following close. The minute it sees me, it begins to yap uncontrollably. As I pass the woman I see her, who I presume to be, husband and 3-4 young kids and identical black dog which begins to yap uncontrollably the minute it sees me, this one somehow more annoying than the last.

As the father and children come into sight, all heads snap towards me in unison. The father, whose curly hair spilled out of his faded baseball cap, flashed me a look as if to say, "If you knew what was good for you, you'd keep on moving." Though I could see him clearly through the corner of my eye behind the dark lenses of my Ray-Bans, I never turned my head to acknowledge him. I just kept up my speed, making sure not to run over either of their dogs, and returned to the gravel road before the dust could settle from my drive over. The complete dusting of my car, along with the gravel beating the undercarriage, was the punishment as if to tell me to believe the signs next time. As I headed back to the 395 as fast over the speed limit as I could justify, I couldn't help but notice how much the family, in all seriousness, reminded me of the Spuckler's from the Simpson's. Their appearance, posture, and dress were remarkably similar.

I drove north on the 395, battling sunlight, and found an RV campsite a few miles down with showers, something I needed more than ever due to the bike ride, and a convenience store. As I cooked dinner that night, I found myself constantly fighting off the local cats that seemed to be quite comfortable at the campsite but have no home to speak of. They bugged me from the minute I parked my car though they became more relentless as I began to cook in the dark, keeping tabs on them by darting my flashlight around to find them in between stirs of my food. It didn't help the fact that I decided to cook tuna that night.

From Half Moon Bay To San Jose

 

Being that I was on the schedule of a HS teacher, I was up early and decided to head out to Half Moon Bay. The morning was relatively clear for being in the bay area and I headed out to sit at the cliffs above the beach and relax. As I watched the birds fly along the waves, I started to notice a small pod of dolphins not far off the coast. After wandering around the beach, I decided it was a perfect morning for a bike ride so I went and grabbed my bike out of the car for the 1st time on the trip. With the exception of the horse manure in certain sections, it was a very nice ride.

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After Half Moon Bay, I headed over to meet Lou for lunch and then grabbed some coffee at Red Rock Coffee while I waited for Tommy to finish work. Tommy works for a small tech company and for those who haven't experienced what a tech company atmosphere is like, let me run you through what it's like. When Tommy is done with work, I meet him at his office, the 3rd floor of a pretty basic office building in Mountain View. With the exception of some conference rooms and an office or two, everyone works in one big room, seperated into their own areas, or sharing that area with someone else (two desks pushed together). Hanging from the walls are silly sayings, or ongoing office games they have going on. As an outsider, if you didn't notice the handful of people sitting at their computers, you would swear no work is getting done. People are working together, interacting, and the mood is definitely light.

I walk into the server room where the servers take up about 1/20 of the space of the room, while there sit 2 nice Foosball tables in the center of the room. We play some games of foosball (I get my ass handed to me as the other guys had quite a bit of experience under their belt as they not only play a lot now, but also played a lot at their last tech jobs) while the techs run some diagnostics on the servers. Tommy and I head off to leave but before we do, he goes to pick up some food. They get food fully catered once or twice a week (before the recession, all lunches were outside of work and paid for by the company). On the counter of the kitchen area is a brand new espresso machine with instructions on how to make different espresso drinks (before the recession it was a tab at Red Rock picked up by the company for all employees). All-in-all, after my last job, it felt like a giant play ground for adults. From my understanding, this is pretty normal, and for bigger companies like google, it is to an MUCH larger extreme. If you don't believe me, ask Dee.

After picking up Tommy, we went back to San Jose where we hopped on our bikes (like we used to do back just about as long as I can remember) and rode and checked out the local rose gardens and met some exchange students in town for the summer to work and learn English. They were really friendly and interested in talking with us, though I am pretty sure they were most interested in Tommy due to his impressive hair. After the rose gardens, we ate and drank, then rode some more, then drank some more, then rode some more (being completely safe of course), and then drank some more. We went to a place called Trials Pub where they had 3 different beers on Cask that you could buy by the pitcher, it was phenomenal. It felt good to be back on the bike and it felt good to be doing what I used to do (before the accident). Felt like things were beginning to get back to normal, even with so many changes going on.