I wake up and everything is wet, my socks, tent, shoes, even the air is wet. The fog rolled in and hug over everything.

Mike is from Missouri and a "grey beard programmer". He walks over to to picnic table to talk while I make coffee and oats. We bond over being burned out from working in Software. He ended up retiring, I ended up taking a sabbatical. 

He's riding solo and is probably in his 60's, he has a nice attitude and we start sharing stories and advice on the road. To my surprise, he seems to be much faster than me on the bicycle! Age is just a number after all.

As I leave I smell a licorice scent and notice there is wild fennel growing on the side of the road here - interesting touch.

As I follow the flat roads, I see someone parked on the side of the coast who looks familiar. He is an old man wearing a tall red hat with a massive white beard - he's a gnome and he drives a bright orange car. I remember him from Oregon, in one of the foggy mornings I thought I had dreamed this character up, but here he is standing in front of me.

"Hey you're the gnome guy I saw in Oregon!"

"Oh yeah that's me, name's Jim. I';m seeing lots of people all over again and again. Passed a couple in Montana and bumped into them again in Washington - say how far are you going on that bike?"

I tell him my plans and Jim tells me all about his love for the color orange, his collection of gnomes, his wizard staff and music festivals he attends,and how he almost died by driving off a cliff - He's probably 70.

"So Jim, what do you do for a living?"

"OH I work for Gnome Land Security"

I love this guy. He lets me take his photograph next to his car, which is the Galician word for Orange...

We say goodbye and I tell him to honk if he sees me on the road later in his trip. Three hours later on the shoulder of highway 101, Jim flys by in his orange convertible named Laranxa and waves.