well, there doesn't seem to be any time for rest and relaxation. I slept well enough last night and I had a pretty good waffle breakfast. today was one of three planed mountain bike rides. it was going to be the easier of the three rides...but I just wasn't feeling it. I had a killer green tea latte (they are so good!) an I rented this way-cool soft tail bike. I was pretty excited to get going.... at least mentally I was ready.

I made it! I didn't have phone service for the last 3 miles or so, I couldn't inform the world about my victory.
I was so tired yesterday...as I had mentioned over and over yesterday,but it was so bad I think it's worth mentioning again :)
the trail was pretty nice for the most part. it was really buffed out and mostly flat. I would have loved if I did't have to carry this 700lb pack! in fact falling with this pack on was pretty scary. iwould usually far forward and when I "landed" I would run forward off the front (that is pretty standard) however since I was going so fast I had a lot more momentum and I would have to run really fast... the only problem was that my legs were not strong enough to support the load. I would end up tumbling on the ground with the pack and all. it was pretty painful at the time...and now it is still painful! the problem is that right now I can't tell why things are hurting so badly...from falling or from being worked.
so last night as it was getting darker, I was going as fast as I could. I was told that the first "road" that I crossed would be the sign that ithe road I wanted was across the street. so I wasn't paying too much attention at first...bacause I kind of had this in my mind. I was heading downhill and still moving pretty quickly (for a unicycle) so I crossed a paved driveway.... no that wasn't it. then another....then a paved private road...then another. this went on for a long time. I was getting so neverous. it was getting darker darker. my friend said that he would start heading "up" the road after dark to look for me if I wasn't there by then. if I passed the road...then what? he wasn't going to look dowwn the road. I did't have any phone service....and I was stressing pretty badly. actually I was pretty delerious and everything seemed like a huge problem. I had thought about knocking on someone's house..and asking to use the phone...and asking for dinner :)....but I really didn't want to do that. I decided to just keep going downhill and try to make to the town of nevada city...and there I would make a call to someone. at this point I was so depressed, I had made it this far only to have over shot my final destination :( as I was contemplating spending another night in my tent...i look up the trail and saw my friend on his bike waiting. oh I was so happy! I would have hugged him if I wasn't so intent on getting to his house. "how much further" I asked... "about half a mile" . at this point I really didn't care I had company...and a way out. Ironically what made adventure unicycling exciting..was that I did't have a way out...and that I was alone.

I did it! from kings beach to nevada city one unicycle...and an 800lb pack :)

share the trail

maybe you can't tell, but that's a bear track! pretty fresh too. he was traveling the opposite direction...i don't know how we missed each other :)

he is what the trail looks like



4 miles togo....

i've been out of food for quite a while now....and out of energy even longer than that. the only thing driving me right now is not quiting. the sun is making its way down and if I don't get back by dark my friend will be out for rescue.
I picked up the last water stash about 3 miles ago . he put it in this minute made cherry limeaid container. I could taste the hint of fruit in the water. right now I would probably give some kid 20 bucks for a glass.....ohhh

when I got near to the area where my friend stashed the water...i noticed some really loud.... and really old rock music playing (late 80s early 90s).and there was an old trailer parked there with bunch of motor cycles. it was my friends! of course not the friends but my motor cycle friends I had made earlier in the day. they noticed me and turned down their music (my god it was loud!) they asked if I needed any water.. I said sure... I thought I would be polite since they had guns. I rested my uni on a stump just outside their camp and walked over to get my water...when I returned to my unicycle I noticed that I had rested it on a stump that they were using to dry their squirle (sp?) carcas...yuck! it was really shocked to see it so close to me.
I filed up my camelbak with the new water....and started to leave. as I was leaving one of them asked me if I neeed any food. I don't know why I said no... but I did.....and now I am so hungry, and all out of food.

ok... I am tired beyond belief. a while back I ran into a couple of guys on dirt bikes they stopped to talk to me and I got some general directions to the trail. they were impressed with what I was doing....then we quickly parted.
(to be continued)
a while back I found a stream with running water. I had less than one liter left... and I was curious how to filter water. I got everything out and conneted all the hoses properly(?) and walked over to the stream unknowingly dragging my camelbak mouth piece in in the mud...yuck! since I only have two hands I had to be very creative on how to hold everything and still be able to pump. so I fugured out a way that involved holding the pump in between my knees and holding up the camel back with a couple fingers and the other fingers holding the hose with clean fresh mountain water....oh yeah! I was pumping for quike some time before I could feel the pump primed. the all of a sudden a bunch of black water started filling my camel bak.
second tip of the day.... always prime the pump before filling your container. I had to throw away my old water and only use "fresh" water.

I ended up only filling my camel up half way because my friend had stashed some more around here ...that's when I came across the gang from deliverance.
i'll talk about it next time...

the good news is that i'm only about a mile or two from my friend's house.... the bad news is that our fore fathers were a bunch of drunk cowboys when they made this trail. now I am about 12 miles away. this trail is so confusing there are so many options I am very afraid of taking the wrong direction... because it will imply a very long up hill. note: I am at the top of some hill....and I can hear the cars below....

the pioneers could not have been this stupid! straight up a freaking hill, for crying out loud.
I know the trail is just going to drop down again....
actually i'm only 78 percent confident i'm on the right trail anyway :)

I finally made it to the pioneer trail.

this is the trail or forefathers used to get to sacramento.... I guess? anyway it's the trail i'll use to get to my friend's place tonight.
this a pretty cool little pool.

our forefathers used to clean up here before they.....heh :)
one more photo of my unicycle

easy little fella...don't get too close to that cliff ... :O

I don't have very much food left....i may have a severe bonk in a few hours... stay tuned.

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.