Distance today = 53.14 km; Total distance = 2385.38 km; Location = 3 km north of Guadalupe – 35 o0.291′ N, 120 34.198′ W; Start time = 0810, Finish time = 1619

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/175243712 (added retrospectively after applying the file repair program)

I am having troubles again with uploading my Garmin data. I can view it in my GPS watch, but it won’t transfer to my computer and, therefore, the Garmin site. At least I know the distance for the day, although not the vertical ascent data (which is only of interest to me really – only the distance is required for the documentation of the run). So, there will be no Garmin link today. Hopefully I can work out what’s going wrong, as this is getting annoying.

It was another productive “day at the office”. I ran the 11 km I needed to reach San Luis Obispo, where I had breakfast with the support crew. From there it was on to Arroyo Grande. On the way I saw something that made me think I was out the front of Loudon Wainwright III’s home (see picture below). This is a real photograph with no doctoring. I felt sorry for the skunk, but the occasion was too amazing for me to pass up photographing it.

For those readers who are too young to recall the era, there was a popular song (although it wasn’t one of my favourites) from several decades ago called “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road”.

The afternoon included what I thought was going to be a monumental “wrong way” involving backtracking 10 km or so, which would not have counted in my official distance. However, Google Maps was correct that I could go that way, although it was dead-end for cars. Lucky, as I would have been completely demoralised by 10 km of backtracking. It turned out to be a nice walking trail for about half a kilometre.

I finished just short of the town of Guadalupe, and tomorrow morning will take up where I left off from. Tonight we are staying in the large town of Santa Maria, in the County of Santa Barbara.