Seg # 57 Santa Maria/Nipomo-Orcutt Trails + streets 5_2_15

Start	SE of Orcutt, CA	N  34.84863  W 120.42294	S-N mi 12.5
End	NW of Nipomo,CA	N 35.02775 W 120.50792	TrlLgth 20mi Ride 26.8mi

Ride hr    2:00     AVS 13.3 mph          MXS 36 mph         DST  26.8mi       TMP 64        KCal 1208

My route should have been about twenty miles but finding my 

way on the planned route was a damn headache.

 siThis is the second trail I rode backwards, i.e. south to north. The ride included trails, bicycle friendly streets and trek across open country through a dry river bottom. In planning this segment I had more notes as to how far I should ride in a direction and where I should turn. The fact that I got lost at least three times made it frustrating a bit scarey. It would have been best that Geoff would have stayed with me and helped me stay on course. But because "Smarty Pants" (my Samsung Note 3) ran out of power, I was just out there trying to get back on track. The most damning part of the ride was where I needed to parallel Highway 101. It appeared on Google Earth and Google Maps that I could take the Santa Maria Levee Trail northward and then take a path along 101. But instead of a rideable path, I was pushing and carrying my bike like a Cyclocross athlete through soft sand and strawberry fields to get to the other side of the Santa Maria River (no water-bone dry).

This was the trail I used to get to the other
side of the Santa Maria River.

 Not only was it a challenge to get to the opposite side of the river bed, but I came upon a bunch of drunks in what appeared to be a shack for farm workers. They were quite boisterous and likely would have given me crap for crossing their strawberry fields. I hid out by some trees and when I saw a semi-truck pulling in their line of site, I scampered to the truck and jumped on my bike. I heard the roughens yell but didn't here what they were saying. Anyway I got out of perhaps a bad situation without a scratch. As I pedalled north and passed more strawberry fields, I thought fondly of the days on the farm and being assigned to multiple fruit picking jobs. Strawberry picking was a joy because at

I couldn't help myself from helping myself to these tasty gems

 least half of every picking that I did on my own recognisance, was in my stomach and not in the basket. There were many other picking assignments with apples being the biggest assignment. On the Carroll farm we had a little over ten acres of peak producing trees. The Whitney crab apples were the first apples to be ready. They followed the red, yellow and Montmorency cherry and the black raspberry pickings. As we moved into early August, the other apples were maturing and needed picking. Mom picked more fruit than the rest of us. Sometimes mom and two or three of  the boys would attack a tree and have it disseminated of fruit in an hour. Other times one or two of us would peddle along at a snails pace, plucking the ripest and largest fruit. One apple picking incident  that hounds me to this day, was a time when mom had three boys (Don, Dick and myself) helping pick the Wealthy apple tree near the grape vines and closest to the house. I saw mom leave the tree and go into the house but didn't see her come back. We boys were chatting away like canaries. Thinking, or maybe not thinking at all, I referred to my parents as the Old Man and the Old Lady. No sooner had my vocal cords released these disrespectful words, when I heard mom say, "Glenn, that is no way to refer to your parents?" I hope I apologized, but for some reason I still feel guilty for using such disrespectful language. Maybe I didn't apologize. Damn me! The heart of the apple picking season was October and one year when all my brothers had flown the coup, just mom, Ed and I were available to pick a bumper crop right before a freeze would claim an otherwise perfect season. I knew it was extremely important that I help. Mom asked me if she could approach school to stay home and pick apples. I was fine with skipping school but what about football practice? My dad took care of that issue by driving over to Coach Macomber's house and informing him I was missing football practice and it better not affect my starting position. We got the apples off the trees and piled on tarps. The mounds of apples throughout the orchard was a beautiful shade of red. I think we were successful because a few neighbors helped with a bushel or two and my dad actually picked too. His role had always been to prune, bud, and spray the trees. Not to pick. Oh, an another thing---patrol the crop! He would walk the orchard with a twenty-two rifle or a double barrell shotgun, he would fire in the air to scare away apple stealers from the town's renegade population. The only lawsuit potentiating occurrence, post-gunfire, involved a kid getting caught in the fence and then failing down a steep embankment of the ditch. only to break his arm. The fact that this young man was the son of a lawyer, makes it even more likely that my dad would have been prosecuted in this day and age. We never heard a word for the perpetrator or his dad. I liked those days. A major downside of raising apples involves controlling the pests. Back in the days when I was assigned to driving the tractor while my dad sprayed the trees, no one was concerned about the hydrocarbons in the spray. My dad would wear glasses, a cap and overalls but no respirator or anything to cover his face and hands. It took nearly fifteen years for the side-effects of the pesticides to raise its ugly head. In the fall of 1966, my dad started to complain of difficulty breathing. I was in college at the time. My folks had sold the Carroll farm and my dad took his half of the proceeds to buy a larger orchard near New Market, Iowa, This is when the respiratory issues were peaking and the closest doctor in Clarinda had no clue why my dad was feeling like he was suffocating. Of course the usual avenues of diagnosis, e.g. lung cancer (my dad never smoked) and heart disease were evaluated many times with no conclusive findings. So, as is the case in many states and definitely in Iowa, mystery  cases are sent to the state's primary teaching hospital, in this case the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. I was a second year dental student so I would stop by his bed on my way across the Iowa River to the dental school and again on my way back from a long day of lectures and tooth related laboratory courses. Initially dad was being treated by a mucky-muck pulmonologist but when it became clear the costs were going to be astronomical, he was parlayed to  care from residents and interns. I will never forget Father's Day 1969. A patient called me about five in the morning saying my dad had a rough night and he was worried that he was being ejected from UIHC because there was talk that no one had a reasonable idea what was wrong with my dad, especially when it was determined his oxygen exchange at the deepest part of the lungs was only twenty per cent of what it should be. I got to the hospital shortly after I received the call. My dad did not seem to recognize me and was rolling and thrashing in his bed. I tried to talk with him, but it was just moaning and rumbling coming coming from his lips. The assigned intern came in and said he would need to sedate my dad because his anxiety was depleting oxygen faster than the oxygen from the nasal cannula could get it into his lungs. The intern administered ten milligrams of diazepam (Valium) with minimal affect. And then he gave dad another ten milligrams. Knowing what I now know using diazepam for dental sedation, I believe twenty milligrams were too much. Anyway the next thing I knew, they brought a gurney into the room and told me to get away. I was confused and surprised at the same time. Because when I looked back at his bed, they were lifting my dad on to the gurney and my dad had a smile on his face. Almost as if he was enjoying all the attention he was getting. I had no idea how bad things had become so when the head resident called me into his office, he started talking about how sorry he was. I thought is he sorry because they were running out of solutions, or because they wanted my dad to be moved to a nursing home. Whatever I was thinking, it wasn't that my dad was dead. "Jesus Christ!" I said.--- "my dad is dead?" Really? Since he was just sixty-three and had no known maladies, it was a major shock to me. How could he have a smile on his face and be dead? Because the hydrocarbons in the spray bind up the oxygen receptors on hemoglobin, my dad basically suffocated and I am convinced Valium used in excess speeded the process. At least I don't think he suffered. I would like to "check-out" with a smile myself. I guess I got windy about about my dad because today is Father's day.  

My smart phone ran out of power and I was unable to contact Geoff. Luckily I came across a cell phone business call Boost. I was pretty tired by the time I got there so I asked if the ladies behind the counter if they could give my phone enough charge to make a phone call. Not only did they charge my phone but they loaned me  their phone to call Geoff. He was only a few blocks away so he drove over to Boost and led me for five or six blocks to the planned northern pick-up point. After hanging the bike on the carrier, we headed to Ojai on a better road than highway 58. Thank God