Spent the day in Santa Barbara. Population: 89,639. There is a fancy downtown with Spanish style buildings and varieties of shops along the shaded streets and arcades.
Everyday I bike through around two or three decent sized cities. I have a long mental list of cities that I tell myself, "someday I will live here". It is exciting to see so many different types of towns. Although biking doesn't cover as many miles per day, it forces you to rapidly keep moving from place to place. Whereas in cars, trains, and airplanes cover miles fast but have fewer stops. Biking has an advantage in that you can explore more places and see more things.
The Mexican border is about 200 miles away from our current location. It is surprising to see myself this close to the end already but I think I've got a pretty good idea of hot painful biking, canned beans and ramen, bathrooms where they filmed "Saw" from, and dirty laundry pillows. It is these things that will exponentially show the luxury of my previous lifestyle without worrying about wet sleeping bags and clean underwear.
