For the past two days, SWAE have been spread out Los Angeles county, cranking hard to meet with a huge concentration of outdoor adventure schools and guides. Daniel is going to meet with Rob to finish the last steps of testing for the Website, while Will and Elliott are continually killing it with outfitters.
Elliott and Will have split up our last two cities on this trip and Elliott has gone on to the San Diego area to work down south, while Will is concentrating his efforts in Los Angeles. Only one more week remains on SWAE’s summer adventure. It’s strange to think that this tour is nearing it’s end.
The graffiti'd walls of Venice Beach.
Since we have ridden into Southern California, we have made a transition from lawn surfing to couch surfing. Because the sprawl of the cities in So Cal are so expansive, we have been able to contact friends in the cities we ride into, and have slept with roofs over our heads for a majority of the time. Dan’s brother, Josh, took us in for our first night in Santa Monica, and Dan and Brendan have made his apartment their homebase for our time in L.A.
Dan has also been spending some quality time with our programmer Rob, and they are beginning the last steps of testing to completely perfect SWAE’s Web site.
Will and I have been working in and out of Manhattan Beach, where his friend Jordan has been nice enough to take us in. The spread of Los Angeles is quite a bit more intense to try and get around by bike than other cities we have visited along the trip. Drivers barely notice us as we pedal along the shoulder of the road, sometimes only looking one way before turning out into the rest of traffic. It has been quite an unnerving experience and I am looking forward to riding in a less hectic area once we leave L.A.
The neighborhoods of L.A. are expansive and this metropolis is as overwhelming as any we have been in along this trip. The constant bustling of people is almost too much to handle.
We have all made an effort to stay close to the coast and the pristine beaches are an incredible juxtaposition to the concrete jungle further inland. The winding bike path makes moving from one neighborhood to the other less complicated compared to the network of streets and freeways dominated by cars.
While an article on SWAE is still being written in Santa Barbara for the SB Independent, another was written for the Examiner.
Eric Duncan, a Hidden Adventures Examiner, wrote an article on SWAE for the Recreation section of the Examiner’s Web site. Check out the full article here.