2019 ALC Day 1 - San Francisco to Santa Cruz

After Day 0 was done, I was still packing and I finally got to bed at 10:30 p.m. and woke up at 4:00 a.m.

Again, I thank my wonderful husband, John for waking up early with me. He drove Justin, newbie, Mauricio and me, so that he and Mauricio could us for the Opening Ceremonies. On this day, I wear a red cape In Memory of those we have lost to AIDS and In Support of this Living with HIV.

The Opening Ceremonies were very touching, reminding us of why we raise funds and ride. We learned that we raised $16,755,967.

After learning about the money Justin and I sauntered to our bikes. We finally got out of the shoot and rode in the cool fog of San Francisco to our first rest stop in Pacifica. Justin, being a much faster rider, ended up leaving as I was seeing rest and lunch stops.

We took Highway 1 all the way to Santa Cruz, a spectacular route of our California coast, the weather was not cyclist friendly. We rode in the rain for 8 miles and headwinds until rest stop 4, which was 5 miles away from camp. A very challenging 81 miles.

Lunch was very good. For us meat eaters, pulled pork in a tortilla. Yummy! I sat with Sister Fancypants. I was so exhausted and my butt felt as if it were about to fall off - AGAIN!
The rest stops were fun, but I stayed only a few minutes, enough to get very few pictures and was so good by eating only a 1/2 banana and a slice of orange at two stops, which was all I needed. Lunch was another story and I shouldn't have had the extra cookie and extra bag of chips.

Some of you might enjoy Rest Stop 4 Gladiators.

Before riding into Santa Cruz, I stopped to meet Stephanie Stainback, whose brother died from complications from AIDS. We had a heartfelt talk that had us both in tears.

Dinner was piled on to get me ready for tomorrow's 109-miler. No second dinner for me. On my way to Princessville at 6pm.

Now I'm off to stretch legs.

Please click on the Facebook logo below to link to the album, a Facebook account is not required. Thank you.

You are our #Heroes #RideLoveLive #TakeCareOfEachOther and we think about why we give, roadie, and ride.
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.for those who can't
.for those who live
.for those who give
.and most of all, for those who can't live if we don't give.
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#PositivePedalers #EndingStigma will #RideLoveLive until HIV/AIDS is a thing of the past #givingbacktothecommunity #cyclinglife #volunteer #sanfranciscoaidsfoundation #losangeleslgbtcenter #aidslifecycle