Wednesday, April 29, 2009

What, Me Cycle? (Day 3)

Day 3 started off bad, but ended quite nicely as I got to coast my way into the Coachella Valley, where over 125 golf resorts awaited to deny me entrance. Many of the gated entrances bore "NO BEARDS ALLOWED" signs.



Getting through Palm Springs was a little tricky, as there was some sort of rodeo, round-up, texas-hold'em festival going on that blocked the main street. But once I was through the hullabaloo, I biked another 10 miles or so to the neighboring town of Rancho Mirage, where I found a place to camp under a bridge on Bob Hope Drive.



I biked approximately 54 miles today, making a total of 147.5 miles so far. Not hugely impressive, but at least I'm not going backwards. CLICK HERE to see the progress thus far.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

What, Me Cycle? (Day 2)

What can I say? I am continuing on with this crazy attempt to bike to Texas. I wish I was a more experienced cyclist... sometimes I feel like an idiot on the road with my big trailer. But it helped strike up a few conversations along the way, most notably with the folks at the Mona Lisa in Redlands, CA.

At the end of the day, I went into a convenience store to buy some food and drink and a lady said, "You have a bug on your backpack." I was so drained of energy, all I could do was say, "Okay."



Didn't make as many miles today as I did yesterday... but I did pedal, I swear, I did pedal. CLICK HERE to see my progress so far.

Friday, April 24, 2009

What, Me Cycle? (Day 1)

After my bike and trailer got stolen, i decided to dig deep in my pockets and buy another bike and trailer. As soon as i picked them up at the bike shop... i was off... heading east! I have no idea how far i'm going to make it. My butt is already sore from one day's worth of cycling.




I ended up biking a little over 60 miles. It would have been a little less if i didn't have to do a 4-mile loop after the LA River bike path took me to a dead end. Whee! CLICK HERE to see a map of my first day's route.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Leaving Los Angeles, Take Two

The new bike has been ordered and is ready to be picked up tomorrow morning. After nearly a week delay, I am ready to try and leave LA for the second time. If all goes well and I don't wimp out, I should be out of Los Angeles Country by this time tomorrow. Then, if I can maintain a relatively decent pace and no major mechanical failures occur, I should be in Texas sometime next month.

I made myself my own opening credits to help inspire me and keep me moving along.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Gone in Less Than 24 hrs

I just spent a thousand bucks on a new bike on Tuesday in preparation for this 1,000-mile, LA-to-Dallas cycling trip. I was all packed, turned in my apartment key, and was ready to head out... when some cocksucker stole my bike outside the Santa Monica Library in broad daylight!

Bought on Tuesday, stolen on Wednesday. Now, that's efficiency!



After an anxiety-filled night at my cousin's home, I woke up today and decided to give the bike shop a call. I wanted to see what kind of possibilities there were for replacing my stolen transportation. I still don't know if I really want to shell out the dough for another bike and trailer, especially when my cycling skills are kinda sub par.



I have to make my final decision by Monday. If I give up on the biking idea, I'll probably end up busing it back east. My main fear is buying another bike and then finding out I suck as a long-distance cyclist somewhere in the Arizona desert.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Why so Glum?

Something very bad has happened... which may put a major strangle-hold on my plans.

Must go to sleep right now... but tomorrow I will have to make some hard decisions.

Getting Ready to Leave LA

The time has come to leave Los Angeles and put myself in motion. My plan is to head out of LA and bicycle to New Mexico where retired couple, Marie and Ken, are hiking the 730-mile Grand Enchantment Trail. I'm trying to arrange a meeting at one of their pit stops so I can interview them about their walk across America in 2005. After that, it's off to Dallas, Texas.

I just bought a new bicycle and a cargo trailer for $950 and I'm gearing to start pedaling east in the next day or two. Since I no longer have an apartment in West Hollywood, I'm hanging out in Santa Monica until my cousin Bridget and her fiance Kevin get home and I can crash on their spare bed.



I'm currently in the lovely Santa Monica Public Library, killing some time. I'm a little giddy because this is my first attempt at blogging from the road. When I did my walk from NY to LA, I had to relay my entries to friends, via phone calls. This, in turn, resulted in blog entries being about 30-50 days behind schedule. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up the pace once I hit the road... and I hope to God that my future entries will be more exciting than this one.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Extra Work

The last couple weeks or so, I've been doing background work for a few TV shows. This is known as being a lowly extra. It's pretty easy work and you get free food, but the pay is horrible. You get 8 lousy dollars an hour; that's McDonald's wages.

My first prime-time appearance happened tonight on the season finale of the show "Life" on NBC... which will most likely be the series finale as well. I play one of the homeless folks at a shelter and I got 0.2 seconds screen time! I'm the blurry guy with a blue hoodie. No autographs, please!