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Reminiscent of older times July 19, 2012

So this Monday, I took off on a mini adventure that reminded me of my days on the road with Ryan. Sean Flannery, and Dave Delaney and I took off Monday around noon for a four day bicycle trip. The goal was to visit breweries along our way to San Diego, inlcufing Pizza Port, Greenflash, Alesmith, and Ballast Point.

Day 1 we headed to San Clemente via PCH. This is only a 40 mile ride, but for amatuer riders like myself, it was quite the workout. The sketchiest part was definitely Laguna, that place really needs some bike lanes. I also had a hard time getting up those hills, especially the last one up to pizza port in SC from Doheney. I later found out that these hills were easy compared to the ones I would see in San Diego. Pizzaport was great, Sean’s wife Mel met up with us for dinner and a good time. We did have some trouble on the way up though, Dave’s left crank came loose in Laguna, and so he road the last 15 miles or so, having to pull over and hand tighten his crank every 5 minutes or so. We finished the night riding to San Mateo Campground in the cool black night. Sean slept under the cover of his tent, Dave slept under a picnic table, and I slept under the stars.

Tuesday we woke up made some camp coffee, waited for Dave’s ride to the bike shop to come, and then Sean and I slowly started our way down south. As Sean and I were waiting for Dave to catch up with us, we met a guy with a loaded out bike sporting a British flag. He was headed to Panama, and started in Boston. He said it would take hime another 3 months to get to Boston, and he would decide then if he wanted to keep heading south or noth. Dave met up with us at San Onofre Bluffs Campground with a new crank and a rejuvenated spirit, that man can really ride, but after riding 15 miles with a broken bike he was ecstatic to have a working horse again. We then had a gorgeous ride through old PCH, camp pendelton, and the beaches of Oceanside. We had more pizza port in Carlsbad, and took a nap under the shade of a tree in a local park. It was perfect. We woke up and road to Leucadia, to meet up with Sean’s cousins for a place to stay for the night. We got there a bit early so we stopped at this amazing coffee shop called pannakin’s. We had another great little break in their courtyard, just before heading up the hill to the other Flannery residence. We ate some Karina’s for dinner, were Sean had a Bomb burrito, which included carne asada, guacamole, french fries, and two taquitos. We hung out with Sean’s family and then got a much needed rest.

The next day we woke up with ideas of hitting the opening day Del Mar races, but decided over breakfast at Pannakin’s that it wouldn’t really fit our schedule. We headed south to San Diego, and made good time, that is until Torrey Pines. We opted to go through the state park, which was gorgeous, but required one of the craziest climbs I have ever done on a bicycle. We were all drenching sweat, but it felt good to make it to the top. From there the plan was to ride to our hotel room, but we took a few wrong turns and ended up having to go on the freeway for a bit to get to our destination. After going up a few more gigantic hills then we had planned, we decided to make our route a little more direct, and went straight to Greenflash. Saddly, greenflash was closed for 2 more hours, so we went and had some much desired all you can eat sushi to prep for the afternoon/evening that would follow. We headed back to greenflash and tried a variety of great beers, here are the ones I can remember:
Sorrano pepper double stout
WC IPA
30th st Pale Ale
Trippel
Le freak
Rayon vert
Hop head red
EAst village pilsner
Park West porter
Imperial IPA
We took a breather, and headed for Alesmith. This place was very mellow, but had some great beers to try:
Nut brown ale
grand Cru,
yalesmith, u
barrel aged
anvil Esb
Wee heavy
Barleywine
Speedway stout
Speedway stout on cask bourbon barrel aged
Alesmith IPa
Someone at Greenflash, mentioned we should check out Hess since they are really close to Alesmith, and I am glad they did. Their grazias coffee beer was one of my favorites of the day. Here are the other ones we tried there:
Imperial red, venarator
Coffee porter, Brunus
Jucundus
Black IPA
Claritas kolsch
Deceptio
Finally we headed to Ballast Point. It was an epic trip through traffic, where we beat many of our fellow brew tourers who were travelling via automobile. Ballast had some great beers, I think my favorite was the jalapeno smokescreen. Here is what we tried there:
Big EYe IPA
Black marlin porter. Bourbon barrel aged
Sculpin IPA
Navigator dopplebqck
Tongue buckler
Guallijo pepper calico amber ale
Dorado Double IPa
Piper down Scottish ale
Sextant oatmeal stout, nitro
Winter San Salvador black lager
Thai ginger one wahoo wheat
Barry ale
A few different people recommended Bruskis for dinner, saying it was delicious and had great beers, and they were correct. Among our advisors was a fellow cyclist named Tom who is plotting his own brewery in Phoenix, AZ. He said it will be called Freak’n Brewery, and that if we ride our bikes out there, he will buy us our beer.

After some great food, and a few more beers:
Wooky jack
Rodenbach grand Cru
Alesmith nut brown
We headed to our hotel room, only to find out that we didn’t really have a hotel room. I thought I reserved one nearby, but turns out it was over 10 miles away. We were able to cancel and get another room, for a hefty increase, but we were all happy to sleep after such an eventful day. I said several times over throughout the day, that it may be one of the single greatest days of my life, and I am truly thankful for it.

We awoke the next morning to a disgusting cloud of gas floating in our hotel room. Apparently our bodies had not processed all the food and beer we consumed the previous day in the most pleasant manner, and the odor was the proof. We ate a quick breakfast in the hotel lounge, and raced to catch our train at Sorrento Valley. We booked it down some major hills, and got to the station with 10 minutes to spare. A few hours later we were in LA, and decided to cap the trip off with some felipe’s french dip sandwiches. We were going to take the red line to transfer to the blue and head back to Long Beach, but we decided to go for one more ride through downtown LA where we were able to cruise by skyrisers and city hall. We all made it home safe and pretty exhausted. It was an awesome trip!
Link to a map of the trip

Walking California To Main May 11, 2011

After our trip across the country, I love hearing about other people doing similar adventures.  Today I heard about a young man who plans to walk from my hometown of Long Beach, CA to Maine!  You can read about him at hitchcockwalks.com

Ryan is going to be OK March 2, 2011

For those of you who don’t already know, Ryan was in a pretty gnarly motorcycle accident yesterday afternoon.  We don’t know a whole lot about what happened, other than that he t-boned an SUV and went flying over it landing on the street 15-20 feet away.  He broke both of his legs, fractured his jaw, and had a lot of scrapes and cuts.  He is pretty hurt, but the doctors say he will be fine.  He just needs to rest and heal for a while.

We tried to visit him last night, but he had just gotten out of surgery, and so we couldn’t.  I went back today with our friend Ron and said hello.  They didn’t want us in there very long, just because he needs to rest a lot.  He wanted to pose for a picture to show everyone he is in good spirits.  Just a warning these pictures may be a little graphic.

Here is a picture of his helmet

And his backpack, that is not paint.

If you know Ryan, then you know why he is more than OK with me posting these pictures.

Nostalgia October 4, 2010

Last night I was riding home and noticed my odometer was about to switch over to 30,000 miles.  I pulled over and snapped a picture real quick.  Sometimes, a lot of times actually, I miss my old life on the road.

I did some math, since that is what I do now, and if I rode those 30,000 miles at an average of 50 mph that means I spent about 600 hours on that bike.  Just to give you an idea that would be the equivalent to 24 days straight on a motorcycle.  Which means in the last 30 months of my life, one whole month was spent on a motorcycle.  I am pretty proud of that.

Jesse Permann March 31, 2010

Hey guys I just wanted to let you all know that this morning a friend of the trip, Jesse Permann, passed away from cancer.  Jesse was a fun guy, and a great poker player, and we got to hang out with him a few times while we were on the trip.  He was the kind of guy that you just didn’t get sick of, super nice, welcoming, and knew how to have a good time.  He was only 29.

For now it would be great if you guys could just pray for his family and friends, and especially for his wife Rochelle.  They just recently celebrated their one year anniversary.  Sad news, but please keep them in your prayers.

Personal Blog November 19, 2009

I don’t know who reads these posts, but I thought I would let people who are looking for updates know that I have been doing my personal writing and blogging on my own site since I got home.  If you are interested in keeping track of my life and writings, you can find me at NathanaelRowe.com.

I will still be updating this site with any relevant information pertaining to the trip, like events in the news or possible book updates, but other than that, you now know where to find me.

Adjusting to Normal Life October 23, 2009

Well I have been home for about 3 and half weeks now, and a lot has changed in that time.

The first things I did when I got home was I started to work out daily, and cut fast food out of my diet.  We both ate a lot of unhealthy food on the trip, and gained a bunch of weight, so I am trying to cut a few pounds.  My goal is to have lost 25 pounds by my sister’s wedding this December, I have already lost about 12.

I have also landed three different jobs, thats right 3.  I have 5 hours as a video/graphic producer at Parkcrest Christian Church, I am running a skate park at Westside Christian Church on Fridays, and I am a substitute teacher.

It is weird doing normal things like going to work, and not wearing the same clothes everyday.  I have become especially fond of making food at home, something that was never a habit before the trip.

We were featured in the Press Telegram again shortly after I got back, and are actually working on maybe getting a TV spot with a Christian Network.  I will let you guys know more about that if it comes to fruition.

As for the book, I have been slowly working on putting our story together.  Writing is complicated, and not one of my best skills, but I keep telling myself that my only goal is to write a bad book, and then hopefully I can give it to someone else who knows how to make it into a good book.

Lastly, Aaron Caluza and I have had a great time with our new podcast at RealLBC.com, so if your a local, you should tune in some time and tell us what you think.

I think that is it for now, but I will keep you all updated.

HOME! September 28, 2009

After over 6 months of traveling and living off of only what I could fit on my bike, I am finally home.  It feels so weird, but very very good.  I loved my travels, and wouldn’t trade it for anything, but I am pleased to be home with family and friends.  When I got home today, to my grandparents house, my grandparents had made my room up for me.  When I was living here before, I had all of their furniture, and even their decorations up, I basically just stayed in a fully furnished room that was not really my own.  So when I cam home today and walked into my room, I felt like I was one of the people on the home makeover shows.  There was the cut out of my newspaper article framed on top of my dresser, and many other pictures of mine up.  I kind of hate to admit this, but I teared up a little, cause this was the first time in over 6 months that I had my own place, besides that cursed tent of mine.  I didn’t think I would be so emotional about it, but I was, and I can’t tell you how good it feels to have a home.  Don’t get me wrong, so many of you guys opened your home to Ryan and I, and we did feel at home in so many different places, but this is such a calming thing, to know that I finally have my own place, even if it is just a room in my grandparents house.

Tomorrow I start the job search, and what will hopefully become a daily workout.  On top of that, I am starting a new local podcast with my buddy Aaron Caluza for all those people in the greater Long Beach area. It is called realLBC.com, and the first episode airs this Friday!