I lived on a houseboat on that river for 8 years about 30 miles south of Sac. Sea Lions were pretty rare, but they'd occasionally swim up from SF. Great fun to watch, very powerful swimmers. Two whales have ventured up there in the past as well.

Thanks for setting us all straight. 👍 I’ve been to San Francisco a couple times, and saw them at Fisherman’s Wharf, like somewhere between 50 & 100 at once. It’s pretty much impossible to count them, the way they keep getting in & out of the water. 🤔😁 I’m fairly sure this one was by itself, but I didn’t watch very long, being on a fairly busy bridge. 😉

No mooses today, but I saw a heck of a lot of sheep, goats, horses & cows, on farms that I rode past today, including several babies. 😲😁 Taking what looks like a road on Google maps, but quickly turned into a gravel road, with no signs or markers on the actual physical road, I found myself on a nature preserve. I counted 21 wild turkeys, 7 deer, and a hoot owl, who visited while I was setting up my tent. 😁

Yep - I used to bike commute across that bridge every day, when I lived and worked in the Sacramento area. Thankfully that working thing is nothing but a distant memory these days. :-)

It appears that you are on tour now? Where are you headed?

Gulfport, Mississippi - Sept. 2018. Eastern half of the Southern US, modified Southern Tier. St. Augustine to Del Rio. A pretty miserable tour, due mostly to the weather.

No clear destination, at this point. 🤔 Recently, I left Chico to explore further North, made it to Red Bluffs, and decided to turn around. So now I’m about a mile outside of Chico again, lol. 🙄😉

I have a pretty old bottom bracket on my bike, and getting it replaced isn’t as simple these days as normal. Something told me to quit goofing around, and get it replaced, before going TOO far out in the middle of nowhere. 😉

Good move. Being stranded in nowheresville isn't much fun. If you make it up to Southern Oregon let me know if you need anything.

Well, I finally found a nice new Shimano UN55 BB, and it was only $25. 😎 Now to find a bike shop, that’s not backed up for the next 6 years, to remove the old one for me. 🙄😉 I just don’t have the right tools or experience, with those pre-cartridge BBs, and don’t really want to get jammed up there. I get a nightmare daydream in my head, of getting everything apart, EXCEPT for that darn fixed cup, and getting completely messed up by it being stuck. 😲 Knock on wood. 😉

totally worth it getting a shop to change it out. If the fixed cup is hard, they can throw the bike on a vice and get it off in a few seconds, bingo.
and totally worth it with a un55 type bb cuz then you never will have to deal with it again, especially given how you switch bikes now and then ;-)
even if you do keep this bike for a while, a un55 will last a heck of a long time if its installed properly and they grease the threads well and torque it properly. Could go 25,000kms or more.
dont forget to get the crank arm bolts tightened again after a little while, not uncommon to need a bit of a turn after a while after taking a crank off.

Copenhagen, DK




Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), the largest Museum in Denmark.

Gravel Circumnavigation of Moosehead Lake (2 nights)

Musings from a bikepacking trip around Moosehead Lake:

1. Bears love to $hit on gravel roads

2. You can do 100 miles of gravel without padded shorts

3. Carried a whole smoked mackerel for 130 miles and did not eat it

Southern California, Pacific Coast Route-- People watching.

1- a nice change of place and scenery I guess?
2- you're more of a hard a s s than I am, I have a normal C17, maybe your cutout one is more flexible.
3a- look at it positively, you carried a whole smoked mackerel for 130 miles and a recently bowel evacuating bear did not eat you!
3b- you clearly were not following "catch and release" protocol!

Wholey mackerel !!!

Bob,funny

interesting to thinkwhere the expression holy mackerel came from, expressions are curious

Hm. Bear + aging smoked mackerel + 100mi of gravel.

Sounds like the bear caught up to you. Which explains both why you didn't eat the mackerel and why the bear did his 'business' on the road.

That story's a bit like the one where we'd hiked up into the back country, cooked on the vestibule of the tent (due to all of the mosquitoes), then ended up with no tent. Let me explain. A bad ol' cuss of a black bear came along, from the far side of the tent, and he opted to mow down everything. Chewed everything to pieces, looking for the source of the smell. Ended up with no tent, no gear, and no further reason to remain in the back country. (ie, No more 'smoked mackerel' for us.) Ah, the insanity of youth.

Gulf Islands, BC, Canada

Mackerel used to be the only fish allowed to sell on sunday because it goes off quickly without refrigeration. That's also why they get smoked a lot, but the origin of holy smoke is probably another one.

Well there you go. Cool
And I betcha holy smoke comes from the Catholic smoke incense thing they wave around

I had actually read that somewhere.

It’s not just gravel they like. When I rode Going to the Sun in 2017 the road was still closed to cars beyond a certain campground. After I went around the gates I saw numerous piles of scat in various states of decay, including one that had clearly been deposited very recently. I thought to myself “You have all this forest around you and you felt compelled to drop a deuce in the middle of the road? WTH?”

^^^
It could be a lot worse. You have to watch the sidewalks anymore too. A certain type of homeless people can’t be bothered to find a spot in the woods, as needed. 🙄💩 I always wondered what I was going to use that particular emoji for, now I know. 😝

One take on the origin:

World Wide Words: Holy smoke

well, its the old "make swear words out of the most sensitive topic" method.
For all the puritanical uptight christians, its the f word, s h t, and all those sort of things.
whereas here in Quebec, the French part of Canada, the swear words all are connected to religious catholic stuff, because the church and religion was so omnipresent and controlling.

understandable human nature when you think about it.