Pre-Post: This is pretty much an uncensored version of the events of our bike ride. If you are uncomfortable hearing about sex, drugs, profanity, etc you should check follow our PG-version at www.10LegsWillTravel.wordpress.com . This is a warning. If you don’t want to hear about these adult actions please leave now.
Leaving Sonoma was kind of fucking tough. We found a city with great people that we had an itch to explore… hell, it was even an attractive place for us to live. That decision probably shouldn’t be made after only 12 hours but sometimes you get a gut feeling about a place and a group of people and you just know they are cool. That is how we felt about the group we met in Sonoma. We had to leave though and get moving to Santa Rosa.
The ride itself was pretty uneventful. It was only 23 miles and we were able to take our time. We did pass a really cool dog park and decided to let Higgs play around and burn off some energy. He had a great time, though the people at the dog park were kind of assholes. I can hypothesize all day about this (was it because only wealthy assholes hang out at a dog park in wine country during midday on a Monday… or maybe they all know each other and we were the “outsider”… possibly they are jealous of our sexiness, youth, kick-ass dog, and my big blue seductive eyes that will drop the panties of their daughters… who knows?) but the truth will never be known. Maybe it was just a collective bad day for them all.
Regardless, our schedule was light that day it it felt nice to be able to take a slow ride and stop to see sites as they came. Our only “deadline” at this point is meeting some friends in Fort Bragg on the 14th and the World Naked Bike ride in June, but we have plenty of flexibility and I am finally getting pretty good at having realistic goals for us each day. It can be tough sometimes to slow down, even for me who is kind of a lazy hippy who stops and takes pictures of flowers just because I can. That reminds me, we are on Instagram too (10legswilltravel) if you do that. It is mostly just random shit.
Anyway, we got to Santa Rosa with high spirits. This was a multi-day stop for us because Anna needed to knock out some work, I needed to get some bike repairs done, and Hans needed to get laid…. that third one wasn’t actually on our specific “to do” list for Santa Rosa but is on all of our life “to do” list. We were couchsurfing again and our host was fucking awesome. His home was one of the best places we have seen and was clearly built with a lot of love and dedication to doing things his way. He even allowed us to stay an extra night when my repairs took longer than expected (I needed a new crank for the bike and was able to upgrade to something more in line with what we are doing).
After getting to know our host and drinking much of the first night we crashed pretty early. Our original plan was to go to the Cinco de Mayo festival that the city was hosting but they didn’t allow alcohol. Take a moment and read that sentence again. Cinco de Mayo without alcohol. That is like porn without nipples. Non-alcoholic beer. Back row of a movie theater when you are 17 without an awkward handjob. Sleep without rest. It is a terrible idea and it was no surprise when I found out it was put on by the local government. Only government would do something so ridiculous. So, we skipped it and got boozed up with our host instead and then drunkenly ordered chinese food and devoured it. Our metabolism is so high right now that we get drunk kind of quickly, it is cool.
So, our first night of rest behind us we headed to Russian River Brewery, the top brewery in California according to Thrillist. It was so damn good. The flights with 17 beers was only $16 and I could get a pint of Pliny the Elder for about $5. It is so nice not paying Los Angeles prices for things and this experience really reinforced the Thrillist list as a “must see” guide for our travels. Look out other 47 top rated breweries in the lower 48 states… we are coming for you and your hops. After getting our early day buzz on we went to a sweet vegan spot called Gaia’s Garden and gorged on curry before heading back to our host’s place to get some actual productive things done. Of course we got drunk again with our host also.
We woke up and noticed Hans’ sex hair… so I’m pretty sure she got some lovin’. She says she did but I wasn’t there to witness it personally but I trust her when she says she got some great banging. It had been a few weeks so high-fives were exchanged. It is amazing how a half dozen orgasms or so can really brighten your mood. We love celebrating each other’s orgasms. Well done host, you did her real good.
Most of that next day was spent mostly relaxing. We have found it is nice to take a multi-day break occasionally to give our bodies and minds a rest. It was really nice to have some “normalcy” by watching shitty reality TV, drinking beer, eating Oreos, and napping. The night went much like the previous couple… beer, tv, and bumping uglies. Hans did her thing with the host while Anna and I got some night and morning sex for the first time in a while (mmmm, groggy morning sex), which is a great way to get things going for the next leg of the journey.
On our host’s advice we decided to detour from our route and hit up Lagunitas brewery in Petaluma and then go into Sebastopol to explore and be productive. The ride to Petaluma wasn’t bad but the weather kind of sucked and we had a couple tire issues.
I have really been surprised at how many broken beer bottles there are on the side of the road. What kind of asshole throw’s glass bottles out of a moving vehicle? That may be fun for whatever neanderthal idiot gets entertained by the sound of glass shattering but that shit can kill a cyclist. Not only can having a tire blowout on a road cause an accident, changing a tube on a road can put the cyclist in harms way for an extended amount of time. People are idiots and I sometimes want to punch them in the baby-makers with brass knuckles.
Once we got to Petaluma and the amazing Lagunita’s brewery we were in a happy place again. The beer garden they have set up is probably the best one I have ever been to. It is bike friendly, dog friendly, and has a great selection of fantastic ales for a reasonable price. They had music playing and the atmosphere was just friendly and laid-back. I would have stayed all day if we could, but we did have another host to meet and stay with for the night so we finished our flight, got a new patch from the gift shop (collecting patches from breweries is cool and not a sign of alcoholism, right?), and finished our ride for the day at our host’s beautiful farm home just north of Petaluma.
Post-Post 1: Also, we have set up a GoFundMe account for our ride. If you enjoy the adventure or just want to receive a post card, booty pic, or vegan meal check us out here
Post-Post 2: If you would like to see all our pictures you can check out our Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/10legswilltravel.
Wandering Oak 