Day 23: The ranger told me that I probably wouldn't want to camp here
(San Simeon SP to Oceana SP)
date: Tuesday August 27, 2002
daily miles: 66 miles (106 km)
total miles: 1,745 miles (2,808 km)
As I rolled into the Pismo Beach State Park campground, the ranger looked at me and my Klein and the BOB and promptly said, "you probably wouldn't want to camp here." Seems major problems in the hiker/biker campground area with theft from locals and vagrants -- they like stealing the contents within tents and selling the stuff for liquor money. He directed me to Oceana State Park campground a couple of miles down the road as they haven't had as big a problem and the security would be much better.... nice huh.
Today started great. Sunshine was out and cleared up the morning dew fairly fast. Ready to go and I ended up chatting with a guy I had met the night before at camp. He had drawn for me this cool little comic (scan is coming!) about a touring bicyclist tooling down the road. Joe Corvino is his name and is out of the Los Osos area. Great stories and a great guy who just loves riding his bike and being with people -- he does a lot of short distance touring in the area so it is pretty easy to stumble across him. If you see him, make sure he gets out his pad of paper and just watch how fast this guy can doodle with a pen and create a cartoon on paper and bring a smiles to someone's face -- it is cool.
Another guy who was in the hiker/biker area last night had a wreck recently and broke his collarbone. Spent the last of his funds to pay his medical bills at the hospital. Not able to ride because of the pain and wasn't going anywhere fast -- unless hanging out in your tent is considered fun while you wait to heal. Somehow somebody in the campground heard about him and loaded him up this morning to get him on a train to Seattle -- amazing the kindness of strangers in this world...
Security in the hiker/biker campsite is pretty tight here at Oceana. The ranger didn't question myself or the Brit in camp -- but two guys who hiked in got the Gestapo treatment as they fit a "profile" the security guard didn't like. They literally had to dump the contents of their packs and the guard inspected their stuff -- and then they had to show more identification and a police check was run before they were allowed to stay. Hopefully no problems tonight -- but given the security guard prowling through here as often as he does -- nobody would get very far if they did steal anything.
The riding itself today -- just rolling hills and lots of traffic. Emphasis on lots of traffic. The traffic problem will continue to get worse the farther south I go. Riding was good today though. I definitely enjoyed it. :-)
Let's see what tomorrow brings-
Mark
