July 18 - Pogonip, UCSC, Wilder Ranch

Yesterday I took a break from this personal narrative I've been working on and biked from home, across santa cruz to pogonip park, navigated uphill through horses into UCSC, hopped the jumps a bit, rode across north preserve and down through kresge and porter, around porter meadow and family housing, across some field laden with cowpies, over a fence and into what I later figured out was Wilder Ranch. I felt almost lost and almost turned back but then I landed on the Long Meadow trail, which I rode through a few weeks ago. I rode up to Wild Boar trail, a new one for me, and then into Old Cabin trail, which was a really magical area. Eucalyptus Loop took me up to a high bluff overlooking the ocean and all of monterey bay. Rode a little farhter north on the Wilder Ridge loop, started dropping into Zane trail and eventually made it back to the farm at Wilder Ranch. Biked back through some train tracks and cabbage fields to the pacific bike path home.

This was a 4 hour ride, covering 26 miles and 3,000 ft of elevation gain. My muscles were drained on arriving home so I made a big soy protein smoothie, did a bit of yoga and felt great. Followed that with the same thing I had for lunch: a tofurky beer brat with fried onions and bell pepper, magical saurkraut, and spicy mustard, with a fat tire and a salad.

Yesterday's Ride

This summer, while living in santa cruz, I started this post:

Yesterday I biked from home, across santa cruz to pogonip park, navigated uphill through horses into UCSC, hopped the jumps a bit, rode across north preserve and down through kresge and porter, around porter meadow and family housing, across some field laden with cowpies, over a fence

Today I rode the part starting at the fence again. It goes into wilder ranch via some lovely forests and a very difficult uphill rock garden that was too slick to ride this time. A bit of fireroad to old cabin trail, fast and ferny then a climb out. Down through wilder, and into santa cruz, to natural bridges and the monarch walk, but it was too cold for monarchs. the day started cloudy with some sprinkles, but the ride was lovely.

Studies

Stopping on a trail at ucsc to study..