ALC Day 5

Santa Maria to Lompoc

If you've never heard of Lompoc, it's b/c it's a tiny city. Ever heard of one with only 3 taxi cabs? That's Lompoc!

Today was a very animated day to say the least. It was "Dress in Red Day." Someone realized that during the old route, riders looked like the AIDS ribbon as they lined up and down the hill. Dressing in red made it all stand out.

When you tell ALC riders to dress in red, they don't just dress in red. It eventually became "Red Dress Day," meaning everyone where's a red dress!

There are a ton of pictures, but I couldn't resist posting this one. This guy was a Roadie (volunteer) helping out at one of the rest stops. He was passing out the paper bags that we use to hold our lunch goodies.

Today we had turkey sandwich, chips and a nectarine. A lot of people wore equally silly outfits and road on their bicycles with them! It was a pretty impressive display of cycling ability.

Since it was a short day and we covered only 47 miles (as opposed to 107 miles on our longest day), I arrived at camp at just before 2:00pm. I'm usually at camp btw 6-7pm.

I got a chance to leave the camp to visit the city of Lompoc. After waiting in the shuttle line for 45 minutes, I found out Angela could not come with me b/c her dinner break was only 1 hr and it would take us at least that long to get into the city, have dinner and come back.

I left myself and headed to Vons where they had a Starbucks! I was craving for a Frapachino! Upon arriving though, I decided to grab dinner instead and found a Mexican place just across the street. Eagerly, I asked the waitress,

"Do you have Horchata?"

She confirmed they did and brought me a Texas sized glass. Needless to say, I swallowed it down practically before my Steak Picado arrived and ordered another. After getting my bill, I found out it was a free refill! Maybe I should have gotten another. I love that stuff! There's a single Califoods grocery market on California street at the top of the hill that sells that stuff. It's made by Kerns. Other than that, it's only sold at restaurants as far as I know.

So how is my camera powered? I got this solar powered battery pack from Amazon for only $17 and it works great! It sits in the sun for the day while I'm riding and I can charge my camera or any other USB device (except my cell phone for some reason).