AIDS ride Day 5! 6/8 Santa Maria- Lompoc Red Dress Day!

Red Dress day is literally that. Thousands of people, men and women, peddling out in red dresses in varying degrees of taste.
D wears a red tutu that is a gift from T, He wears a fetching pair of striped boxers with comedy buttocks sticking out. (Hopefully there will be pictures!) T endures a days worth of vulgar comments, the fake butt IS very amusing! Gives a new meaning to bringing up the rear, doesn't it? hahaha.
Up early and in the pack thru Strawberry Fields (forever) pedal furiously to keep up and are pleased to find we are passing people!
5 huge hills: One gigantic trek up the 101 just past Vandenberg AFB, where D is alarmed to see signs warning of unexploded ordnance (bombs!) Pleasant chats with many cows and fields of wild deep purple swee' peas.
The tiny city of Casmalia (pop 100) Throws a dance party in front of the tiny general store. The whole town comes out to watch, party and cook us bar-b-que.
Lots of hills to cope with, but we barely stop at the rest stops, 'cause we want to look like hot shots.We arrive at camp relatively early.
Lompoc is adorable, small, a little depressed, and the mural capital of California. We go into town from camp on the bus, because a sheep-faced lady sez we'll never be able to walk that far. (We are very tired of the bossy broads on this trip,it seems to inspire worry and angst and buttinski-ness in a certain breed of older lady.) It's about a mile away(!)
Old town Lompoc is cute and sleepy, we spring into the local bookshop and are soothed at the cafe. The proprietress of the bookstore flirts outrageously with T, gets him to give her his home address and she sends him provocative bookmarks.This passes for flirting in the bookselling biz. D well nigh invisible. D's cross to bear.
Coffee is T's 1st good cup in 6 days.
We go to a local steakhouse, "The Blacksmith" for dinner, have illicit wine/beer, HUGE roasted 'choke and Portuguese pupu platter.
We skip bus cause of local crazy and walk to camp. Not that far and a pleasant walk to boot. We catch end of talent show (which we had been asked to do, but turned down. T hates playing keyboards) Not so talent show actually.. One GREAT comedian and one great singer/guitar act. Some really reprehensible lip syncing.
Coldish. Our friend Jose from day one is still sweet as ever in spite of a mounting knee problem.
We turn in, try Jelly sandwich sleeping bag configuration.