as I left camp this morning, I decided to follow the power lines....despite what les (a.k.a. "survivor man") always says, "don't be lured into following power lines... often times they will just take you up and down cliff sides"... I was keeping this in mind because it was looking pretty bad the direction I was going. I could still hear the cars from the interstate near by. In the mean time I was getting deeper into the brush and not happy.... the interstate option started sounding better and better with each step. ok that's it I'mheading to the interstate. the "trail" was a little better but still some bushes. as I got closer to the sounds I caught a glimps of the interstate... it was elevated! crap!
so decided to start heading down this mountain so I could climb the other one that would hook up to the other side of the elevated hw. as I was down in the thickest of brush I could hear a train. that was part of the train tracks I was supposed to follow yesterday... but the unfriendly gas station man couldn't tell me how to get to them. anyway they were actually closer than the hw! so I changed directions again to head over to toward the tracks.... then I saw a stop sign! woohoo! a road. I scrambled over to the road and walked a bit because there is no shoulder.... now I am stopped because I wanted to make another post.

later

day three i've got my godzilla socks on and i'm ready to suffer for another ten hours. :)
tip of the day. last night I couldn't find my head lamp, I thought it had falled out. I need to post, and I didn't want to turn on the keyboard lights b/c they drain the battery pretty quickly. anyway before my trip I was at the kings sooper passing through the halloween section when I saw some glow sticks for 75 cents! I used one of them last night to luminate the tent while I typed...then I hung it outside the tent to keep the bears away :)

my post may become pretty sparce for here on... the service is getting kind of in and out. so camp is all packed .... and here I go..

unicyclist makes it through the night.
it was a rather un eventful night last night. I slept pretty well. I gave up any illusions of sleeping through the night long ago. despite sleeping on a few rocks I did ok. I basically had 3 positions I could sleep in and I just went through the rotations over and over...
I talked to my friend last night, and told him that I was probably going to bail. he was actually out on the trail last night planting some water for me. I was going to be in an area without water so he was worried that I might be out by then. he also said that I was about 20 miles away. well after all that I think I have to go for it. it might be difficult since I don't know how to get out of here. anyway i'd better start.
oh here is a picture of the tree where my food is hanging... it's the old tree in the middle

well today has to be one of the toughest days ever. I was so tired about 4 but I wanted to get to hwy 20...so I kept pushing. this one rout kind of sucked, but there was no other way... I had to hike next to i80 for about a mile. when I got off 80 the rout was much nicer than it has been all day. I was told to follow the road till it ends then follow the power lines... this went really really well at first then it went really badly. first I lost the power lines then when I found them they just went up up up. so with my 600lb back pack and uni I started hiking up the side of a mountain. I was bush wacking it for some time while going up this very steep cliff. this was by far the hardest thing i've done today. I was also fighting daylight. I needed to camp soon before I ran out of light. I got near the top and found this place with spectacular views! I wasn't really looking for that but oh well:) I ate put all of my stuff in a tree (i hope it's high enough) put up my tent and now i'm here in the middle of no where....at least I don't know where I am. my friend does, but when I tried to call him last time I had no service. it's funny as soon as I get lost my service drops out :)

here is a picture from my camp

I am in a bit of a delema. I am at this really nice place to camp....but I am still too far from where I want to be.
I also don't have any food or tonight. I am so tired right now. my shoulders and legs hurt when I walk, and my butt hurts when I ride. i've been trying to mix it up a bit but I find my self switching every five minutes now. I can't really tell if I am going up hill or down....i really need some rest.

later...i guess I am moving on to cisco right now....i thought I was there an hour ago....but was I wrong. it sucks to be wrong :(

I am pretty tired right now it's been a really long day...so far. I thought I was at cisco, but I just talked to my friend and he informed me that I am quite away from cicso. oh well.
wow! I just saw a crawdad fight. it was pretty lame, neither of them lost their arms.
as I was going down the summit, this car pulls up next to me really slowly.. it turns out to be my unicycling friend from hawaii! he was still in town from this past weekend and just driving around. it was cool that he stopped to talk.

ok enough rest... i'm off

it's lonely at the top.
I just got here at donner ski ranch..and everything is closed...despite the "open" sign. i'm pretty tired right now but as soon as I finish this post i'm off. I rode the entire way, I only stopped a couple of times to take some pictures. here is one a little ways from the top:


and here is yet another picture of leo:

man! I was tired....

that's where i'm going....

see the road?

good morning
I seemed to have lost track of what day it is. that could be a sign that I am so relaxed. that thing like time don't matter to me anymore.... (note: I have been known to loose track during regular weeks as well)

last night when I went looking for a bear locker, I found a shower. I had all my shower stuff with me, because I was going to put all of that into the locker as well. anyway I got all undressed and reached over to turn the water on, when I noticed that it was coin operated and all my coins were back at camp. so on with my clothes... in a brilliant move I decided to save the shower till now.
it was and still is so cold right now. I didn't like taking one, but I still have a couple of days togo and I didn't want to skip this. I put in exactly 7.5 minutes worth of change and sat there waiting for the water to warm up. it took forever, especially with me twisting the knob back and forth..."hmm I wonder if this way makes it hot....how about this way"..etc. finally it started getting warm, in reality it was probably only 45 degrees or so, but it seemed warm. thinking that I only had about 2 minutes left I quickly washed (and rinsed, I mention that because i've actually run out of rinsing money ata car wash ). so the water stayed on and it was getting warmer all the time. I didn't have anything else to do so i just stood there relaxing ... that's when I noticed a little frog hopping around my feet. I don't think he was a fan of the warm water. ..to each his own.

I was really looking forward to breakfast this morning. I was going to have western omelette! I got my jet boil ready and started boiling water..that's when I began reading the instructions for the omelette. it claims that after mixing with boiling water...i am supposed to pour into a greasy pan! son of a!.. I am supposed to carry around a frying pan? well at least I won't have to carry around that dead weight any more :)

here is me just a few monents ago..
.

I made it here to camp just before dark. I am camped at donner park I was hoping to camp near the lake but all of those camps were closed for the season. the camps that were open were not all that great either. this place charges 20 bucks a night for a camp spot. I was going to sneek in and camp outside the park...however, the place I was looking at looked a lot like tredwell's grizzley maze. I think i'll just pay.

boy! the ride over here was sure long. I didn't think I would make it this far. my pack was getting so heavy. I don't know what is in there to make it this heavy...maybe it's the food? I guess I didn't eat any of it yet.. I bought some subway on the way up here....so I guess that's why my load was so heavy. I was very happy when I saw this sign

before this the miles were ticking off so slowly.
all is well now, and it's dark, my food is in the bear locker, and I am in the tent.
I hope I recover before tomorrow's big hill.

not so bad any more.
I just wish I didn't have this 500lb backpack on. I stopped in tahoe city a while back. there were lots of stores there, including a couple of bike shops... one is where I got my new jet fuel (which btw is adding to my already oversized load.) I had parked my uni outside but proceeded to go into the shop with my full load on. I didn't know it at the time but I spun aroud and knocked over some display... it just happened to be for jetboil (my stove).... then I remembered that I didn't have any fuel.
I rode into the other shop on the uni, ther were some people outside and they wanted me to do some tricks! lol.... here is a trick: watch me carry out this 500lb bp down the street.

I got on the trail that folows the truckee river it was pretty nice.



right now I am just resting my back.

well gotta go.

why did I try so hard to that stupid bearing?

i'm about three hours into my trip and this is my first rest. I don't know how many miles i've gone, because my map does not have a scale. i'll just guess and say 30 miles :) just kidding, guess it's 8 or 9 miles.

I was a little hesitant at first. I felt kind of weird riding my unicycle in front of traffic. after a while I got tired of walking and decided to try to ride as much as I can. maybe i've only ridden about 70percent so far.
my butt I kind of tire right now because I usually don't put so much weight on the seat.
I have to try and put some air into the seat...however I didn't bring the correct tool to do it.
I might have to cut the seat cover a bit in order to get to the tube.

swiss army knife saved the day! I was able to save the seat cover by removing the bolts with my swiss army plyers (i guess wars and armies are good for something)
i'm ready to continue now .... hopefully this helps.

last day in paradise

I woke up a little late this morning. I guess it took me a long time to fall asleep. I am pretty nervous about my journey. a little bit of good nervous... and a little bit of bad nervous.
the good nervous, is about not knowing where I am going to sleep tonight. the only thing I know is that it will probably be in my tent. i've been going over all my supplies and trying to make sure I have just enough. i'm leaving a bunch of stuff here and hopefully I can come back and pick it up.
the bad nervous is about climbing donner pass on my unicycle. this is the same hill I climbed the other day... for charity :) it was pretty difficult on a bike, I know it's going to kill me. I don't have to ride it but for some reason I feel like I have to. I don't know why I feel compelled... I guess because it's part of the journey.

more later...

I decided to get my dinner at safeway again tonight, and eat it outside the condo as sun goes down. this way I can get a good picture of the sunset over the lake.
well my timing was slightly bad and I got out here way too early. i've been sitting out here for what seems like two hours and this arizona tea I kicking in. I bought a 42oz bottle for one dollar! can you believe that! that's cheaper than water! anyway I drank most of it and now the sun is never going down :( ... damn safeway.
ok it should only be a couple of minutes now. ....


I hope it doesn't take very long for my eyes to return to normal...

sketchy bike shop.
I was walking around kings beach, looking to pick up some supplies. I found a rite-aid which was pretty cool (no, wallgreen, but close enough) I picked up some stuff there, and moved on...
I found this bike shop, that was hardly lit. when I walked in I was expecting to find some snobby high end joint, that had tinted windows (since it looked dark from the outside) but no.... this place had one lite. it was placed way in the back, and it was one of those creepy basement lights. the ones with one bulb hanging from a chord in the ceiling. I could hardly see the prices of things... and I kept hitting my head on things hanging from the ceiling. in fact everytime I felt my head brush up against something, I would spin around really fast and try to catch whatever it was that I dropped :) it was worth it, because the prices were so good! they must have very little overhead...except for rent.
the guy working there seemed pretty anti social, like he only liked dead people.... but he still tried to smile when I left. before that he tried to put all my stuff into this really tiny bag... it was stretched so much I had to ask for a bigger bag...he seemed a little irritated, but he went in the back to one anyway. it took a pretty long time, but he evntually returned with what looked like a garbage bag with handles. I felt pretty stupid for waiting in the first place, but since he went through all that trouble with out having to kill me. I was really happy.

....

here are some pictures from the condo.



and another.....

cool unicycling shirt

I don't think I can wear this to work :)

the brutal reality of adventure unicycling.

yesterday after I got dropped off at the bike shop, I waited for my friends to arrive so they can take me to their condo, where I would stay for a night and regroup.
the condo is on the north shore of lake tahoe. too bad the donner party didn't have a condo... they might not have tried to go over the pass :)
anyway my friends dropped me off and said so long, and as soon as I closed the front door, I jumped in the shower and took one of the best showers in my life! I had a bunch of stuff I needed to do before I leave this beautiful place, but i'm starting to question my motives now.
who would want to leave this very nice condo located next to the lake (with beach access, even though it's posted that they have "no beach access")
my friend even said if I change my mind I can stay here for the remainder of the week... boy I am going to have a tough decision. it's sooo nice here....hmmm.

whatever I decided, god help me I gotta do laundry!






i've been quite uncomfortable for the past few days

good hearted unicyclist.

so I told my bearing story to almost everyone at the unicycle festival....one at a time. when I told this unicyclist named gary, he asked what kind of unicycle it was. I told him it was a torker....he suddenly got really excited and said that he had a torker and it's bearings cracked too. then he told me that he had three bearing.... but he didn't bring them with him (you can imagine the kind of emotional roller coaster I was on) .
but not to give up on trying to help me, he said that he might not ride tomorrow, and if he decided to not ride he would give me the bearings off of his unicycle! holly cow, my dream to backpack/unicycle over donner pass, was still alive. I was pretty excited that I might even get to ride one of the event rides.
I told him I was really excited, I was so greatful , and I would help him take them off.

so as the evening went on... he never brought it up again. I was kind of hoping that I would know by the evening....because now I have different problems:
1. we have to check out of the cabin by 11:00.
2. I have to return my rental bike between 10 and 6.
ok I guess those are really the same problem.
so I now have 2 possible options for riding tomorrow.
but I have no possible options for getting me my uni, my mtb, and my huge back pack to the trail head by 9 am, and getting me back before 6.
I should have been more worried than I was, but I was just going to stay at the cabin and reurn my bike in the morning. the only flaw in that plan, was that I would have had to ride down to the bike store return it by 10, then walk 2.5 miles up hill back to the cabin and be out by 11. and that plan involved not being able to ride a unicycle on my adventure.

as lame as that plan was, it would have to be my plan until further notice.

the next morning I was actually feeling pretty good that I would not have to worry about my uni, and just hike for the next four days.
when gary woke up, he asked me if I still wanted those bearings, of course!!! so my new plan was pretty much the same as my lame plan, only now I could spend the week unicycling. I helped him take off the bearings and went directly over to my uni and started putting them on. so just to add more drama, I was taking my uni apart and I had one bolt left, it somehow worked it self out of my grip and dropped off the deck into a pine needle covered ground... I didn't have too much hope to find it but I went down to look anyway. I sat there just staring at it until my eyes started watering. :) after about 5 min I finally found it!

now I just need a ride....
to be continued.....

miracles

I found a bearing , the trip is on!!!!