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Editing Post: 2025-10-09 Cancel

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After three days circling around the disaster that is Big Sur, we arrived back at the Pacific at Pismo Beach, passing through San Luis Obispo: a cute college (Cal Poly) town. We started our day at the high campground on the lake, where we passed an interesting night. First, as I arrived in the campground after a brutal final climb Tim offered me a beer. So of course I pitched my tent right there, in the "Jurassic Zone" as the denizens described it. I wasn't worried, as I'd slept near all of the snorers, and I felt kinship as the last time I did the coast I was a snorer too.

Mistake. I usually try to get to sleep at 8:30 or 8:45. At 9:15 one guy was going full blast six feet near my tent, and one of the other snorers wasn't even asleep yet, but talking quite loudly on the phone. Quite normal behaviors, but it was absolutely calm and all six of us in that site could hear every movement from everyone else. After 15 minutes I called out (softly, as remember everyone could hear everything) to our leader, "Brielle, how YOU doin?" She laughed long......

I took a Benadryl and .... woke up in the morning w/ my best sleep score (Apple Watch) on the trip so far: an 88 on 7 hours of sleep. So much for whining about the snorers.

Prior to going to bed Tim had been surrounded by raccoons and took a few pictures. The raccoons were evidently w/ us for a couple hours, one snuffling under the fly of a rainfly and refusing at first to leave. After they left, some belligerent deer moved in....

Today was mostly cute small towns, morphing gradually (as we crossed the hills) into coastal landscape, w/ a crazy stretch of a short climb followed by a long fast downhill on the shoulder of 101, which here was a divided, limited access highway whose shoulder was strewn with the debris of exploded truck tires.

Dinner in the form of home cooked lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and <a href="https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/10213/magic-cookie-bars-i/">magic cookie bars</a>, was provided by Doug's wife, Lois. Really nice to have a touch of the outside world.

As darkness fell, the mosquitoes rampaged for about the first time on the tour, and the raccoons returned. I looked into the trees and saw a whole family of five or six. When I pulled out my phone, only one was left, but he just laid there under the tree, clearly not seeing any reason to move just because three guys were yelling at him. As I type this, I hear Anne calling "get away, get away...."....

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