SIPPING POINT

SAN SIMEON TO MALIBU, CA

WE SET FORTH FROM PFEIFFER STATE PARK in the morning shot full of espresso, last night’s leftover tamales in paper bags. But once we make it out of the forested campground, the full light of day hits like a white comet in 3D IMAX; I nudge my sunglasses closer in an attempt to seal out the head-throbbing intensity. Alisha lags as well—head slung between shoulders as if intent on completing a crossword spelled out on the pavement. The aftermath of one too many beers with the REI crew the previous night.

There isn’t much to do aside from keep pedalling. We pull over for Advil but skip lunch altogether, our appetites disconcertingly absent. By nightfall, we anticipated that we’d be past the Big Sur coastline, arriving in the college town of San Luis Obispo where Alisha has arranged for us to stay with a friend of someone she met during a hiking trip in the Himalayas three years ago. But pedalling is like slogging through cake batter, our legs bogged down and sticky. Instead of closing in on San Luis Obispo, we’re just entering the ranchland south of Big Sur. Hearst Castle looms like a giant white molar on a hilltop in the distance.

“What’s that?” Alisha says, her voice warbling in the whir of engines. “There’s a sign up ahead.”

I pinch my eyes and try to focus—a tan state park sign marking the turnoff for a campground.

“Should we check it out?” I ask.

“I guess.”

We continue toward the campground. Yellowed sweeps of land surround us, brown and white cows plunked down in fields bordered by barbed wire fences. We’ve already rolled for miles without seeing a potential camp spot, two silhouettes against a deepening tangerine sky. The landscape bristles with No Trespassing signs. My head throbs with every downstroke, chest cinching tighter with the fading twilight.

If there weren’t six lanes of highway traffic, I’d suggest pulling a U-turn back to the town of San Simeon. Backtrack to find a nice housewife like Alicia who would sit us down for crackers and cheese at her kitchen table—and I wouldn’t care that the processed cheese tastes like plastic wrap, because at least we could stop worrying about being swept up like pulpy insects on the grill of an eighteen-wheeler.

We arrive at the campground to discover the fee is twenty-five dollars a night. More than our food budget for two days. Our bike lights blink moons on pine trees around us and the temperature is dropping fast. If we don’t stay here, we’ll probably end up in the dry ditch alongside the highway, curled up under the camouflage tarp until daybreak. For a snap-of-your-fingers instant, I contemplate slinking off into the bushes and trying to get away without paying. We did that, once, with Zach. He’d promised that we could sneak in, but the tobacco-spitting hillbilly park host caught us. Roared over on his quad bike and made a macho show of threatening a fine, while Alisha and I used our polite Canadian tourist routine to play dumb. In the end, he just charged us the site fee. But we were pissed with Zach, and knew better than to sneak into state campgrounds.

Still, Alisha and I can’t quite make ourselves fill out the self-registration form and drop our cash in the envelope. I’m exhausted, probably dehydrated, and starving, and the thought of all the things we still have to do—fill out the registration form, choose a campsite, set up the tent, eat dinner—overwhelms me. Alisha stands limp beside me. Aside from the expense, paying to camp feels like an admission of failure, an indication that we’re no different than the retired couples in their plush RVs.

When a lone German tourist in an SUV pulls up to register, the two of us jump at the opportunity to secure a corner of his campsite. Luckily, Luca is happy to share, and Alisha and I spend the evening eating leftover tamales and listening to the radio inside his vehicle. The following morning we fold a doodle of two waving stick figures on bicycles under his windshield wipers before we leave.

THE RUSH OF VEHICLES HAS INCREASED since Big Sur, the 101 joined by other byways and now a busy thoroughfare. We pass through Cambria and the tiny town of Harmony, population 18. Brightly illuminated strands of grass shimmy in the wake of passing automobiles. I wish we were on a country road, riding between the same ranches and fields, but without the onslaught of traffic. I feel about two inches tall.

Los Angeles is less than a week away. We’ve decided to stay a couple of nights in the City of Angels with a couchsurfing host, though I’m unsure exactly what we’ll do. Planning the trip, I had Technicolor visions of Disneyland and Universal Studios, speeding around Beverly Hills with a Homes of the Stars map in one hand, binoculars in the other. Alisha had laughed when I told her of the touristy things I’d imagined doing, and now those daydreams seem silly to me, too.

Over the past months, the sheen of LA has faded. I have little desire to see Disneyland or Beverly Hills, although I did welcome the fantasy as company on the road. Instead of celebrities and amusement park rides, I’d prefer to meet a few interesting people and carry their stories with me when I leave. Besides, Alisha and I have spent so much time in the boonies, I can’t imagine jumping into the heaving, neon-lit heart of a metropolis right now. I know I’ll be disappointed about all the things I can’t afford. Big cities are terrible places if you’re strapped for cash. San Francisco had drained us—we can’t repeat the same mistake.

AN ENORMOUS ROCK ISLAND LIKE A HALF-SUNK meteorite sits in a bay of tropically blue water, a pair of sailing skiffs white as swans in the foreground. Morro Bay—just north of San Luis Obispo. We stop just long enough to get our feet sandy before putting our socks and shoes back on. My head still throbs and my nose has been running all morning—yesterday’s hangover appears to have been replaced by a cold. Alisha doesn’t look so hot either. I take another dose of Advil and gulp down water, keep a scrunched paper napkin in my bra to wipe my nose. I realized last night that I’ve been wearing the same shirt for over forty-eight hours. Today, I’m wearing it again.

From Morro Bay we weave into San Luis Obispo, enjoying the residential streets and tree-lined boulevards. The combination of summertime heat and Spanish Colonial architecture—white clay walls and red tiles roofs—brings to mind an entirely different country. It’s just past noon when we reach our host’s place on a cookie-cutter residential block near the university.

Marcus towers over us. Dressed entirely in Adidas, from his sweat-wicking sport shirt to his bleach-bright ankle socks. He looks about nineteen, and it doesn’t take long to realize that we have little in common with him or his three college roommates. Marcus soon leaves to join friends for pizza, but Alisha and I decline, still feeling under the weather and wanting more than anything to shower the grit away, disappear into couch creases.

The roommates have other plans, however, and we soon find ourselves in the midst of a Big Brother marathon. Alisha and I sneak off to the kitchen to cook a meal, hoping that the living room—our sleeping area—will clear out before we want to go to bed. But more people find their way in, bringing cases of beer, pointless commentary, high-volume laugher. Late afternoon passes into evening. When they start doing bong hits at midnight, Alisha and I relocate to the garage, the electric hum of the beer fridge bringing solace. The garage reeks like oil rags and gasoline, but at least we can finally rest. We make our getaway the next morning before anyone is awake, thieving scoops of ice cream as payback for our stolen sleep. I don’t feel guilty for a second.

WE TAKE THE TURNOFF FOR PISMO BEACH, ten miles from San Luis Obispo. The atmosphere is breezy and laid-back, the boardwalk strip of salt-water taffy and fish-and-chips shops about the prettiest sight I can imagine. No crowds, just a smattering of dog walkers and people casting lines off the end of the pier. A thick-shouldered man with a bushy tan moustache saunters across the boardwalk toward us after we dismount our bikes.

“You guys looking for coffee?”

“Sure are,” I say.

“You have that anxious look,” he says, winking.

“That obvious?”

“We had a rough night,” says Alisha, explaining the crowded house, our difficulty sleeping. “Just going to relax today.”

The man heaves a laugh and introduces himself as Craig. He’s something like two-hundred-and-fifty pounds and speaks with the easy SoCal slang of someone whose biggest concern is finding a parking space within walking distance of the beach. His cheekbones rise like bobbing apples when he smiles, his eyes nearly disappearing.

“Want me to keep an eye on your stuff while you get coffee?” he asks.

When we return, the three of us lean against the salt-caked railing, watching lithe-bodied surfers thread between the pier pillars as the sun dissolves the early morning marine layer.

“I come here on all my days off,” Craig says. He works as a mechanic in Orcutt, an inland farming community partway between Pismo Beach and Lompoc, where we have a couchsurfing host lined up for tomorrow. Before Craig takes off, he invites us to spend the night at his place.

“It wouldn’t be an inconvenience?” I ask.

“No way, man,” says Craig, grinning. “You girls remind me of my daughter. She’s totally cool, goes to college out of state. It’s great when your kids grow up to be the kind of people that you’d actually want to be friends with, you know?”

Alisha and I take the rest of the day to convalesce, ambling up and down Pismo Beach’s wide expanse of sand. So this is November in California: elephantine clouds scuttle overhead. With the breeze it’s cool enough for a sweater, but leaves colour the trees; there’s not a raindrop within a hundred miles. Every day the weather improves, though since we’re moving toward both winter solstice and the equator, the days also become shorter. A strange paradox for someone who associates warm weather with the late summer sunsets north of the 49^th Parallel.

WE ROLL UP TO CRAIG’S PLACE AROUND DINNERTIME.

“Hey, cyclists!” he greets us. “Totally rad to see you again. I was just wondering how you were doing, and here you are!”

Craig grins so that his eyes wink shut. The single-floor rancher smells like piano-teacher potpourri and spaghetti sauce; photos of his two adult kids are everywhere. I sense right away that Alisha and I are in good hands with this cheery-eyed teddy bear of a man.

“You guys want dinner? Or we can just chill a while and eat in a bit. Up to you.”

Craig grabs three cans of Busch beer and we sit out on the back porch, waiting for the stars to come out as the smell of damp lawn spools in the air. Alisha and I tell him about our journey through North and Central California, which he punctuates with exclamations of “No way!” and “Way cool.” We boil up a big pot of spaghetti for dinner and keep going back for seconds until there’s nothing but tomato-smeared aluminum. It’s the kind of low stress, stay-in evening I’d been hoping for in San Luis Obispo.

The next morning, Craig puts the coffee on before Alisha and I are up. He has the fake dairy-flavoured creamer that I despise because it’s not cream at all, but I forgive him because he knows how divine it is to wake up to the sound of steam escaping the coffee machine, the sharp aroma of beans. We spend a lazy morning paging through the newspaper in our pyjamas, a throwback to Sunday mornings in my parents’ kitchen when we were growing up. Back then, only my mother drank coffee. My father would read the funnies aloud and afterward I’d scoop the travel pullout. Just opening a colour spread of Morocco, Bangkok, or New York City notched up my heart rate. All possibilities that one day, when I finished school and landed a grown-up job, I would be free to explore. Now, I’m actually doing it. Pedalling with the wind at my back and witnessing Sunday-paper-worthy scenes every single day.

WE SAY GOODBYE TO CRAIG and he tells us to stay cool, man. The highway follows dry rolling ranches with smudges of green trees in the distance. Without the coastal breeze, the temperature ratchets up a few degrees. My calves become slip-and-slides of sweat. Swept up in the current of southbound traffic, we pedal most of the way to Lompoc without rest, slowing pace only to weave around flayed tires and metal debris on the shoulder. I hold my breath every time we roll over a pool of broken glass.

I wish I could say that I don’t care what happens next, that I’m one of those rare, free-spirited souls who live in the moment. The truth is, at every turn I’m contemplating my next move. I don’t stress like I did during the first few weeks on the road, but concerns about where we’ll find food, water, bathrooms, and shelter remain ever present. Even when serendipity seems to be pulling us along, I can’t help but fear the tide will change and we’ll find ourselves up against the rocks.

KEVIN GREETS US AT THE DOOR of his two-floor cul-de-sac home in Lompoc with a series of questions in the form of statements, double-volume.

“Are these your bikes?”

“What are your plans for Thanksgiving?”

“Why don’t you come to my parents’ place?”

Alisha and I are taken aback: We haven’t even been inside yet and he’s already inviting us to Thanksgiving?

“That’s nice of you,” I say, “but we’re not going to be in Lompoc a week from now.”

“Not Lompoc, silly,” he says. “San Diego.”

The opportunity to be part of a genuine American Thanksgiving—the kind I’ve seen on sitcoms with turkey and football and housefuls of squabbling relatives—intrigues me. The vegetarian garden-harvest Thanksgiving of our home seems tame in comparison.

“I’ll call and let them know you’re coming,” Kevin says, whipping out his cell. He has a narrow, athletic build and the kind of pooling green eyes you pay attention to.

Alisha and I exchange our what-is-going-on-here grins. I hear him on the phone: “From Canada, Mom. Not Kentucky. How do I know them? We met five minutes ago.”

Once Alisha and I get cleaned up, we make Kevin dinner, since it seems his family will be cooking for us soon enough. Kevin is chatty and easy to talk with, skipping from one topic to the next the way people read magazines in dentists’ waiting rooms. And though I’m not sure if Kevin’s mother is keen about two random cyclists showing up for the holiday, I’m pleased to have Thanksgiving in San Diego to shoot for. A festive supper before we cross the San Diego-Tijuana border into Mexico.

“SO, I HAVE THIS RASH,” SAYS ALISHA, once we leave Kevin’s place the following morning. “On my inner thigh. I thought it was from my shorts, but it’s spreading.”

“Poison oak?”

“That’s what I was wondering.”

I recall Zach’s nightmarish experience in San Francisco.

“Does it itch?” I ask.

“Yup.”

We decide to get it checked out in Santa Barbara later in the day. Our next couchsurfing host, Steve, won’t be home from work until seven p.m., so we’ll have plenty of time to scope out a clinic before we arrive. For the morning, we ride in a valley, the Santa Ynez Mountains separating us from the coast to the south. While the lower ground is lush with vineyards and orchards, it’s the mountains with their ridges of green and bare, rocky peaks that draw my attention—does it ever snow here?

As I child, I’d never known what I wanted to be when I grew up. About the closest I’d come was the dream of being a professional snowboarder. Later, I did manage to spend a couple of seasons working at the ski hills, first as a lift operator and then as a snowboard instructor. That all ended when I blew out my knee, a year and a half ago. After surgery and the long rehabilitation process, I’m still afraid to push myself physically. True, I’m out here pedalling down a good portion of the continent, but cycling doesn’t submit my joints to the kind of strain that skiing or snowboarding did. For the most part, the road—not the circumstances, but the actual physical thing—is predictable. I can look ahead and see what’s coming. In deciding not to return to mountain employment, I’ve had to face, for probably the first time in my life, that my body has its limits. My priority now is to explore the possibilities within them.

THE NURSE ONLY HAS TO SHAKE HER HEAD once for us to understand that ice cream is not an appropriate waiting room snack.

“Quick,” I say. “Come outside and help me eat this.”

Every kid under twelve eyes us with envy as we hustle the melting abomination of an ice cream cone outside the clinic in Isla Vista, ten miles north of Santa Barbara.

“What if they call me in while I’m out here?” Alisha says.

“Eat fast.”

It’s more of an orange-blue-brown milkshake now than ice cream. We stand beside the door where we’ll hear if she’s called in, right in the path of anyone stepping in or out of the clinic. The sidewalk cement looks like a psychedelic crime scene beneath us. Just as we reach the nub of the cone, Alisha hears her name. She wipes her hands on her shorts, shrugs, and follows the receptionist to the doctor’s office—I should have told her to wipe that smudge off her cheek.

Ten minutes later, we leave with a prescription for antibiotics. It’s one of those bad-good situations: bad that she encountered poison oak in the first place, good she was able to access antibiotics before the symptoms escalated. Doubly good that her insurance will reimburse her.

WE SPEND TWO DAYS IN SANTA BARBARA, Alisha too dopey from the meds to attempt any serious pedalling. Steve, our yoga-loving host on a quest for the next superfood, comes and goes without taking much notice of us, but that’s all right by me. Despite Alisha being too out of it to even sign her name, we manage a brief afternoon visiting the missions and beaches of Santa Barbara, basking in the sun. It’s a funky city, with year-round outdoor shopping plazas and a backdrop of the Santa Ynez Mountains. What excites me most are the palm trees that line the boulevards: undeniable proof that we’ve reached Southern California.

Kevin drives down from Lompoc to join me for a beer on our second night in Santa Barbara while Alisha stays in, worn out from our afternoon sightseeing. In my mind, Lompoc is already some distant moon, but by car it’s only an hour’s drive north. It could be tempting to believe that there’s chemistry between Kevin and me, but by now I know that going out of his way to meet someone is just his style. Besides, I’m not really looking for romance on the road—something about unshaven legs, a calloused ass, and the acrid sweat-stink of my over-worn clothes make getting close to someone unappealing—and Kevin, with all his intensity, isn’t really my type.

“What are you having?” he asks before we settle into our seats at the bar.

I scan the beer menu. Aside from the rainy day latte in Astoria, I haven’t made a decision without Alisha’s input since we began cycling together. I have no clue what to order. Suddenly, I’m lonely for my sister.

“Let’s ask the bartender to recommend something,” he suggests.

My indecisiveness lands me with a taster tray—a placemat featuring ten three-ounce beer glasses. I like the idea of sampling everything, but I wonder: Is this a metaphor for my life? Do I have trouble sticking with one thing? I’ve never had the same boyfriend, the same job for more than six months (with the exception of a video store position that I held for three years, on and off, until video stores became extinct). I may have pulled through with my undergrad, but only after a year of humming and hawing between disciplines, an interlude in Southeast Asia, and another year at the ski hill. Is that just part of my character—will I always be hopping around, jumping from one tiny beer glass to the next in search of whatever makes me happy? What if I’m just squandering my life, master of nothing? Or perhaps, after I take a sip from each glass, I’ll have unlocked the information to make the right decision.

When I started this trip, I didn’t see mobility as a negative. In fact, my concern revolved around getting stuck in one job for the rest of my life. Which is worse: bouncing between jobs, or sticking to a career path that makes you miserable? My mother chose the latter. It bothers me that she accepted dissatisfaction with her career as her lot in life. I understand her rationale for holding back when Alisha and I were young, at a time when my father’s business was struggling and household stability was her main priority. But once we were older, why hadn’t she done something about it—taken her skills and gone elsewhere, or started up her own business? She’s a talented decorator. To my mind, there have been plenty of opportunities to initiate a change.

By the time I’ve sipped my way through the placemat, I’m too tired to order another drink. Nor could I tell you which I liked best. Kevin had been great company, open with his opinions and able to bring people around us into the conversation with an ease I envy, but I’m anxious to return to Steve’s place. When Kevin drops me off, I find Alisha curled up like a cat in a corner of the sofa.

“How was it?” she asks, half-awake.

“We had a good time,” I say, not wishing to expand on my existential crisis at the bar. “Kevin said that his mom is going to have vegetarian food for you at Thanksgiving.”

“That’s nice,” she says.

I change into my pyjamas and sit on the floor in front of the sofa, Alisha’s toes arced behind my head. A coffee table lamp gives the room a winter-cabin glow. I wonder if Alisha will be well enough to leave tomorrow, and how we’re going to navigate the gridlocked streets of LA. I tell myself that we’ll figure it out—we always do. But the doubts remain present. Since San Simeon, the road has become a much scarier place. With a stream of eighteen-wheelers nipping at our heels, Thanksgiving in San Diego seems impossibly far away.

I TAKE THE LEAD AS WE NAVIGATE the hectic Pacific Coast Highway into Ventura. We ride toward our couchsurfing hosts there at a leisurely pace, careful not to overtax Alisha. The journey into LA tomorrow is going to be a long, hard grind. I still don’t tell Alisha about my mini-crisis over the beer, or the quiet terrors I feel whenever I think about the metropolis. At least I’d been able to use Steve’s computer to secure couchsurfing hosts until San Diego. No more camping for us, at least until we reach Baja California. While I’ll miss the wilderness and suppers cooked on driftwood logs, I’m glad to have one less thing to worry about come sundown.

In Ventura we find ourselves the recipients of the same generous hospitality that we’ve been encountering all down the coast. Frank, lamppost thin, and Mindy, petite and five months pregnant, welcome us like family. Both of them have that earnest look of people who really listen, wholly invested in whatever you’re saying. A concentrated attention that makes me nervous, suddenly, like I should have something more significant to discuss than self-absorbed anecdotes of the road. I’m relieved when the conversation shifts to Frank and Mindy’s involvement with the church and I can sit back and listen.

TO THE RIGHT, WIDE-OPEN OCEAN. To our left, the vertical wall of the Santa Monica Mountains. At just shy of eighty miles, the push into Los Angeles marks our longest day yet. The intensity amps up as we close in on the city. Everyone, it seems, is headed to LA. A van whooshes by, side mirror inches from my handlebars. I repeat the mantra that Alisha and I have invented to psyche ourselves up: Los Angeles, we’re coming for you! We cycle in a stream of exhaust, white-gripped to the handlebars and choking on fumes. All the while in awe of our surroundings.

“Where did these mountains come from?” Alisha wonders aloud.

I’d imagined it would be all suburbs, Motel 6s, and endless repetitions of big-box store configurations. I had no idea an unspoilt coastline could exist in close proximity to one of America’s most populous cities. In my side-view mirror, I catch sight of Alisha, eyes trained toward the slope, a breathy grin despite the toxic air. She must be feeling better.

Twenty-five miles later, we encounter an utterly different kind of beauty, one where cash is king and the most ostentatious mansions aren’t even visible from the road: Malibu. Every few minutes, a midlife-crisis-type guy passes in a flashy convertible. I compare the mileage on my bike computer to the hour of the day and the invisible cord around my ribcage slackens: We’re making great time. A lycra-jerseyed couple whizzes by on a tandem and I give chase, my competitive spirit ignited.

“Oh no,” says Alisha. “No way, Meaghan. They’re on a tandem—with road tires. We’ll never catch them.”

I don’t care what kind of bike they have. My blood pumps, hard and fast, knees bucking my chest with every upstroke. I’m gaining. Up ahead a stoplight turns red and I hit the pedals with everything I’ve got.

I sidle up beside them at the light. Huge grin across my face. Alisha rolls up just as the light changes green. The couple glances back for a half-second before they take off again and I give chase, nipping at their back wheel. For the next few lights I trail them, Alisha gassing out behind me. When they finally break away on a hill, I cut my speed in half, wait for Alisha.

“You’re like a damned Golden Retriever,” Alisha says, wheezing.

“I caught them,” I say, satisfied. Proud that I could keep pace with a road tandem.

“I’m never following your lead again,” she says.

But her grin is as wide as mine. I know she’s not mad.

AT THE PIER IN MALIBU, Alisha and I strut our spandex like cowboys, our mid-thigh tan lines emblazed like tattoos and our muscles as taut and toned as the hindquarters of racehorses. The people around could have stepped out of an American Eagle catalogue, toned and relaxed and beautiful—there’s not a regular sweatpants-wearing Joe in sight. I take a swig of fresh air and exhale. It feels good to breathe without tasting engine oil. At the tip of the pier, we sink down against the wooden railing and open up our food bag. Today’s lunch, an old standby: bowls of yogurt with sliced banana and trail mix. A seagull hotfoots around us, but we’re not sharing. He squints a stink eye and swoops off.

“Did you see that lady?” whispers Alisha.

I glance around and immediately spot the one she’s referring to: a middle-aged blonde with a teacup Chihuahua nuzzled between her breasts.

“No way,” I say. “Is she for real?”

“We’re arrived,” she says. “Welcome to LA.”

We stare at the woman with the dog poking from her dress, unable to hide our fascination. Then she turns her back to us and we return our attention to the yogurt. Once finished, we lick our spoons and the bowl clean so everything can go back in the bag without a mess. In my periphery, I notice Alisha, face frozen and tongue caught mid-lick. I follow her gaze to make eye contact with Chihuahua Lady, her cherry-red lips distorted in an unravelling bow of repulsion.

Alisha starts to giggle, and in a second, I’ve caught the giggles, too.

“All clean!” she exclaims, tilting the blue enamel to catch the sun.

We were looking at SoCal, and SoCal was looking at us. In one moment, I realized that everything would turn out okay.