Yes, We Have Winter in Santa Barbara

There is a reason I often head to the southern hemisphere in December and January — these long dark nights are for the birds! I know, I know… y’all are like “you live in Santa Barbara, give me a break”. It’s true most of the days here are absolutely perfect and gorgeous for outdoor adventuring. It tends to be super sunny with daytime highs in the lower 60s. It’s pretty sweet, but we’ve had a lot of rain this month, yay! But also brrr… when it is raining and in the 50s. Night time drops into the 30s occasionally, and more importantly from my perspective it lasts for way too long! Yes, Oregon and Pennsylvania friends and family, I said it. But unless you are bike commuting to work after dark and camping out in temps even colder than what I described (because the back country is much colder than here in town) you may not completely understand my experience.

Now that we got discussing the weather out of the way, Jesse and I did head out for a local two night bikepacking trip in mid-November. We’d just had a repair done on his bike and as a result did not get on the road until noon our first day. My memory was that we could make it to camp in about 5 hours, so no problem we would get there just as it was truly getting dark. Well, either my memory was wrong, the soft boggy mud really slowed us down, or I was riding slowly due to a heavily loaded bike — most likely some combination of the three, we finished our pedal long after dark had settled and the low camp near the only water for miles was cold, cold, cold.

Once we arrived at Bluff Camp we quickly changed into all of our dry layers and got the water boiling for a nice hot dinner — I may have forgotten to check how much whiskey was left in the flask and drank more than my fair share of what remained :). At the time, fires were still prohibited in the Los Padres so we were in bed by 7pm and ready for a long night. Thank goodness for reading material! I LOVE the Sun Magazine, if you’ve never heard of it check it out. It has seen us through many long nights in camp.

Given the cold temps and how much the ride in had fatigued me, I squashed our plans to ride farther and higher the next day. Instead we used Bluff as a base camp and had a full day to explore the nearby Wilderness trails (no bikes allowed) on foot. We hiked for a few hours, found some cool paw prints, and spent a bunch of time lazing around in the sun before the second cold night set in.

The second morning I was lazing in the tent, you know for 13 hours, taking my sweet time waiting for the sun to get higher in the sky. It had been windy up high above the trees the night before and occasionally gusting down to our tent. I kept thinking that as morning approached the wind would die down, but at 7am it was still quite windy out. I poked my head out of the tent and was shocked to find dark clouds spilling over the mountains with the threat of rain. What?!? There was no rain in the forecast; it was time to get up, pack camp quickly, and boogie on out of there before the weather was on top of us. Fortunately we were riding away from the storm, but it was a chilly ride either way.

On the cold and windy pedal out the mechanical issue that had been plaguing Jesse’s bike came back to bite us. His old wheel had cracks around the spokes so we had a new one built up by a “professional”. We were under a time crunch so I didn’t have the time nor desire to build a new wheel for him under that kind of pressure, especially since the only wheels I have built so far were never actually ridden! I made them in bike school and then immediately disassembled them. We picked up Jesse’s repaired wheel right before starting this trip and didn’t have time to test ride it — well on this cold windy pedal out of camp Jesse realized all of his rear spokes had come so loose that they felt like they could fall out. Commence the emergency spoke tightening to make the wheel true enough to roll and the hope that it would hold for an additional 20 miles back to the van. Funny how you never think to take pictures during those moments. I was not impressed though:

The wheel held and we made it out without mechanical catastrophe. I wish I could say that the shop fixed it right up and that was the end of the story, but really the entire thing kept dragging out until we eventually bought a new rear wheel that we could trust. If you want something done right…

I just finished the semester which always feels good and will start teaching again in late January. It seems like everyone around me is sick with nasty things knocking them down for weeks at a time so I am being super careful with masking again (and never stopped wearing one in the classroom). Jesse and I have super secret travel plans next week, so we really can’t afford to get sick right now. My friend Kris played in her first ever recital recently and I am honored to have attended — I just think that is so cool! I picked up my clarinet the other day and was shocked at how well I could still play it, but only for about ten minutes before my mouth was too tired.

I also finally took my art out of storage in Kris’ attic AND changed my address to where Jesse and I live. Let me know if you need that new address.

Our garden continues to produce, albeit veeery slowly. Oh hey and the really good news following all the heavy rain we have had? My van no longer leaks around the windshield! The very bad news? It doesn’t start when it is wet. 🙁 Yes, we are checking the distributor cap and spark plus connections. We found the secret trap door to access these parts, but we haven’t replaced them yet, so I suspect that is a story for another day. The good news is that Hashie (the van) usually needs less than 24 hours to dry out and then they run like a champ again. The adventures continue! I don’t do holiday cards, nor really holidays at all, so if you take the time to read this know that you are loved and appreciated. Please do stay in touch. With love…