Katie MacDonald - Bike the US for MS
Sorry for the delay! I was so exhausted after riding on the trip that I only managed to get out bullet points in the evening. The first week back to school has been so crazy that I'm only now getting the time to go back and turn the bullet points into blog posts. Hope you enjoy! Day 0 - March 12 - Boston to San FranciscoToday’s the day! I was so nervous about oversleeping because of daylight savings that I set three different alarms. I got up at 5am (which felt like 4am), got ready quickly, and then walked over to Carissa’s to pack up the car and drive to her parent’s house in Framingham. Her mom then drove us to the Logan Express shuttle, and even gave us some chocolate for the flight! When we got there, we discovered that because it is Sunday, the shuttle leaves every hour, not every half hour, so we had to wait until 7am. This ended up being ok, because our flight was delayed 2 hours. Once we got through the super long security line at Logan, we sat down at the gate and met Kathleen, who was also traveling to SF. We got to chatting, and it turns out she works for Google in Cambridge, and we knew some people in common. She was the absolute sweetest lady ever, and offered to drive us to the bike shop in her rental car so that we wouldn’t have to take the subway. After a pretty turbulent flight, we met Kathleen at the gate on the other end, changed out of our sweatpants and into shorts, and headed out to Avenue Cyclery, the shop that our bikes were shipped to. We met Carissa’s friend Anthony (fellow 4K alum and our host for the night) at the shop, as well as her friend Kelsey who happened to be in town as well, and walked our bikes across the street to Golden Gate Park to assemble them. Carissa was a bit nervous about her wheels, so after we got the bikes all built up, we went back to the shop and got them checked out. The guy there said there was no way they would last all the way to San Diego, so Carissa had to buy a new set. After getting the new wheels, we made the short ride to Anthony’s house, and then the three of us headed out to Southern Pacific Brewing for a small send off party. I got to see Soo Jung and Phil, and Carissa got to see her friend Paul. Overall a great night hanging out with everyone, and can’t wait to get started tomorrow! Day 1 - March 13 - San Francisco to Ano Nuevo - 64.6miToday was crazy tough. Definitely high up on my list on hardest days of biking, probably second to the day we got to Montana last summer. There were so many moments today where I was thinking things like “what the hell have I signed myself up for?” and “why do I think this is fun?”. I didn’t get a great sleep last night - probably a mix of jet lag and nerves. We got up at 6am, packed up, got bikes ready, and then rode with Anthony to Crissy Field in the Presidio, which is our official starting point for the trip. It has a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and is also the spot where Carissa finished her 4K cross-country trip. After lots of photos and collecting a bag of sand, Anthony took us on a beautiful ride around the Presidio, and then back to our official route. We parted ways in Golden Gate Park, and were on our own for the rest of the day. About an hour or so after leaving the city, we got a call from the KOA that we are staying at tonight, and they informed us that the trees at the park are protected, and that we can’t hammock. This came as a complete surprise, as I had called a month ago, before we made the reservation, to make sure that ham mocking would be ok. This stressed us out, but there was nothing we could really do until we got there. Shortly after the phone call we came upon the toughest climb of the day. There was no shoulder to speak of, and the hill was steep and twisty - not a good combination. We caught our breath at the top, and decided that going through the tunnel was not a safe idea, so we took the Devil’s Slide detour. This turned out to be a good call, and we chatted with some people who have ridden in the area before. The hills didn’t let up, and by the time we got to Half Moon Bay we were starving. This is normally where the supported BTUSFMS trip stops on the night out of SF, but we wanted to make it to Monterey in 2 days instead of 3, so this would only be a lunch stop for us. We stopped at a Subway, but mine came out super spicy, so I ended up running across the parking lot for an egg mcmuffin. While I was gone, Carissa started talking to the family that was also sitting outside the Subway. They were super nice, and were also into cycling. One of the things I love most about bike trips is the number of cool people you meet, and this trip has already lead us to meet some pretty awesome people. There were some more steep climbs after lunch, but the last 10mi were pretty nice. When we got to the KOA, the camp office was closed, so we went to the hotel on the property and talked to the guy at the front desk there about our predicament. He was super understanding and helpful, and gave us a free bag of cookies while he called someone from the camp office to come over and talk to us. They ended up loaning us a tent for the night, which was fantastic. They even threw in access to the hot tub, which is usually only for hotel guests. After we set up the tent and got settled in, we walked over to the restaurant for dinner, and were treated to an absolutely beautiful sunset. After burgers, we wandered over to the hot tub and relaxed for a bit before deciding to call it a night. Day 2 - March 14 - Ano Nuevo to Seaside - 68.8miUp at 6:45am this morning. A bit slow packing up, but we eventually made it out of camp. The first half of the day was beautiful, and we got to ride down a gorgeous descent with cliffs on either side of us. We got to Santa Cruz about 20mi in, which is an adorable city. We stopped at a gas station just past Santa Cruz for Powerade and water, and to apply sunscreen, and then stopped again to grab lunch in Aptos at the Aptos Street BBQ. We weren’t hungry yet because we had snacked when we stopped, but we were worried we wouldn’t be able to find a good lunch place in the next 20mi, so we got the food to go and decided to ride another 10-15mi before eating. Just as we were pulling out of the restaurant, Carissa got the first flat of the trip, which we had to stop and fix. The terrain got hilly leaving Aptos, which was draining. Just before we stopped for lunch, the straps holding the stuff on my front rack came loose, so I had to stop to fix that. By the time I caught up to Carissa, she had found the perfect spot for us to stop for lunch. We sat on a fence to eat, and had a great view of the ocean in the distance. I got the pulled pork with garlic bread, and it was absolutely incredible. After we ate, we started biking through farmland that reminded Carissa of Kansas and me of Indiana. It also got really foggy. We eventually got on a bike path, but the last couple miles were pretty draining - we really just wanted to get to camp. We eventually got to Seaside, which is our stop for the night. We are Couchsurfing tonight, with a lady named Chris. She wasn’t home when we got there, so we let ourselves in, showered, and then walked to Taqueria Zarape for dinner. The food was really good, but mine had a couple spicy peppers hidden in it that got me. We got a frosty on the walk back, and Chris was home when we arrived. She is absolutely lovely, and we told her all about our trip. After she called it a night, Carissa and I played cards for a bit, and then were in bed by 9:30. Rest day tomorrow! Day 3 - March 15 - Monterey - Rest DaySince our rough go on day one, we’ve been worried about how we are going to handle the century on day seven. This morning, we decided to rearrange schedule so that we miss century day, and called around to make changes. We figured that if we skipped the day we had planned to bike down to the Big Sur closure and then back to Monterey, we could split the century day in half. After making the calls, we took an uber into Monterey and got breakfast at Fresh Awakenings. Hands down the best breakfast so far. After this, it was a short walk to the aquarium - the part Carissa was most looking forward too. Chris let us borrow her guest passes, so we were able to get in for free! The aquarium was absolutely amazing, and we got to see all kinds of fish, birds, jellyfish, penguins, otters, and even checked out the touch tank. We spent a few hours there, and then spent some time wandering around town. A guy we met at the aquarium told us that there were some mom and baby otters near the coast guard station, so we stopped by. Sure enough, there were two babies and two moms swimming in the water! Well the mom was swimming at least, the baby appeared to be asleep and was just kind of floating there. Whenever the baby drifted to far away, the mom would swim over, pick it up, and swim it back to where she was searching for food. We grabbed lunch at the fisherman’s warf - the food was meh, but we were right on the water so the view was amazing. We stopped by an ice cream shop that a friend of Carissa’s recommended, and then headed to a Walgreens to pick up some icy hot for my shoulder, and a brace for Carissa’s knee. In the evening, Chris cooked us a delicious chicken curry dinner, and we chatted over some wine. The rest of the night was pretty low key, and we did laundry, played cards, and then headed to bed around 10:30.
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katie macdonald
Summer 2016, I biked 4,295 miles, coast to coast across the USA to raise money and awareness for MS. March 2017, I biked self-contained from San Francisco to San Diego with my friend Carissa. August 2017 I connected the dots and biked from Seattle to San Francisco. Summer 2018 I am heading to the UK! Follow my journey here! Miles biked for MS:
6,800.13
Updated August 27, 2018 Archives
January 2019
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