June 6, day 34 Limekiln State Park to San Simeon Village

June 6, day 34 Limekiln State Park to San Simeon Village
Starting odo 7619

camping at Limekiln State Park

pretty, but pesky!

I get up and eat the various bits and pieces I happen to have for
breakfast.  The left over bit of french bread  with the cream cheese,
some butter cookies, a yoghurt, crackers - leftover companions to the
Marin Blue cheese, and some pecans.
The ranger tells me I haven't registered, I say I didn't know  what
the camping fee would be for bikes. Its $10, and I have  to vacate the
camping  spot by 11 because somebody is coming to use it. Since I'm
going to do the walk through at the slide site at dusk, I'll have to
wait the whole day  until starting to ride in the late afternoon.  Its
about an hour's ride to get to the slide site, which is blockaded at
the small town of Gorda.
I pack up the bike and vacate the campsite, which is reserved for that
day, and the Ranger lets me keep it in the kiosk for  the day.  I hike
around for a bit, and then go up to the road to use the chalk and
leave a  message for Shyam.  This does not really work, and consumes
nearly all the chalk!

looking down at Limekiln's beach

Looking around, I see a small trail that leads to a flat spot with a
wonderful view, and is shielded from the wind.  I lay out in the sun,
and its very nice.  When the wind blows, I'm a little cold, when its
still, its nicely warm.
After a while, I see a cyclist go by, and it might be Shyam.  Its a
bit too far for me to see and be sure.  I head back to get my bike and
start out.
Leaving the park about 4, I get to Gorda about 5 and hang out at the
store there, and then eat dinner at the restaurant.  There are no
other cyclists here, so the person I saw was not Shyam. There is wifi
there and I'm answering an email from Shyam, when Shyam walks in!  We
hang around for a while, then at 7:40 the workmen are going home and
we head for the slide area, which is about a mile down the road.

The mountain slid down and covered the road!

Its about to get dark!

We walk our bikes across with no trouble, but its now about 8pm, and
we have to decide what to do - camp here on the side of the road, or
ride into the night until we get to the next park.
I push for continuing, its a nice night, there will be virtually no
traffic, and we have a tailwind.
There are now four of us, me, Shyam, Ryan and Danny, and we push on
into a really nice evening of riding.  Its a magical night for me, as
my legs don't seem tired at all, and the two significant climbs we
have go by without me feeling them.  I plunge down twisty descents that would probably have terrified me during the day! The bike's light setup works great, and nearly every descent results in my gaining a couple of minutes on the others. The surf crashes in the dark,
and there is a faint shine of the moon on the water.  In the 30 miles
we rode, we were passed by 3 cars.
We end up at San Simeon Village at a motel 6 which we split 4 ways, to
a total of about $15 each.

June 5, day 33 Carmel to Limekiln State Park

June 5, day 33 Carmel to Limekiln State Park
Starting odo 7563

mailbox!

Big Sur Views

We leave pretty early and go by a tshirt store and buy some shirts.
Then we go to the post office but the problem is that they are closed
on saturdays and sundays.  A lady walking by starts talking to us, and
eventually offers to mail our packages for us.  I take her up on it
and give her $15 for the postage.  I don't think it was wise, but
somehow I just decided to trust her.  I have three tshirts, a pair of
tights, and some campy shift lever springs in the package. (and she did mail it!)
We leave and start off for Big Sur.  It takes about 2.5 hours to do
the 26 miles. When I get there, I see a little pub, so I decide to
have lunch and a beer.

At this point its about 4, and Shyam decides to camp for the night,
while I decide to ride about 30 miles farther to Limekiln State Park.
That starts with a pretty big climb, and then I'm not really too fast
on the rest, but gradually the road flattens out a bit and I reach
Lucia, where I eat at a little restaurant/store/motel.  After I eat, I
ask them what their rates are for a room. $200, but for you, only
$150, so I head for the state park.
But not before the lady tells me some important information. It turns
out that the slide which blocks the road ahead can be crossed by bikes
if you wait until the workmen leave for the day!  This is great
because the detour would involve an extra 150 miles, and we would miss
riding a lot of coastline, not to mention that it climbs about 2700
feet in the first 7 miles!

June 4, day 32 Seaside to Carmel

June 4, day 32 Seaside to Carmel
Starting odo 7543
It's raining in the morning, so we are a bit unsure what to do.
Eventually we decide to continue on to Monterrey.
We make a bit too many stops, the Costco, bike shop, breakfast - which
takes too long due to a roach - but we do get breakfast free!
Following the route out of town is slow, and Shyam retraces the route
to try to recover a lost glove while I wait. I take that time to make
a little piece of plastic to wind my headphones around so that they
will not get tangled all the time.
As we're about to leave town for Big Sur, I decide to get some coke
and gatoraide as I don't think there will be stores for  the next 25
miles.
Then we notice that its pretty late, and decide to stay in Carmel for
the night.  We select a place, and then ride to it, which turns out to
be very hard as Carmel  has a lot of short steep hills!

interesting bike spotting

We walk to downtown and eat at a modest Chineese place, then walk back
to the motel.

June 3, day 31 Santa Cruze to Seaside

June 3, day 31 Santa Cruze to Seaside
Starting odo 7505
We get up and leave somewhat late and have breakfast with John at a
cool place in Soquel, finally leaving at about 1:30, but still
stopping at a grocery store on the way out of town.

artichoke field

We ride through artichoke fields and huge  strawberry fields as we near
Seaside.  Its about dusk, so we eat at a pizza place and take a motel
next door, as it starts to rain lightly.

June 1, Day 29 SF to Pacifica

June 1, day 29 SF to Pacifica
Starting odo 7409

Shyam at breakfast

We packup and leave the hostel. We go to a nearby coffee house for
breakfast. There is a bowl of cookies and a snippet of an article
about chocolate chip cookies. This gets me started on cookies and I
lookup blue chip cookies. Amazingly they don't have a store in SF, but
I do find another cc cookie store that seems nearby.  We decide to try
for it - but it appears to be about a half mile straight up, so we
abandon the cookie quest!

The hill that ended the cookie expedition

On the way back to the route we stumble upon a bike shop and go in. I
end up buying parts for my racing bike back in Austin. They are tiny
springs that I'm going to mail back.

Leaving SF

We had planned to meet my cousin Sandy at her office in pacifica,
which is just a couple if miles from highway 1, but are running late.
Eventually we are riding south on 1 nearing the turn for her office
when we  see Sandy waving to us  while driving north on 1!  We ride
the rest of the way to her office and put the bikes inside, then drive
to Sandy and David's.
We're treated to a wonderful dinner,and a relaxing soak in their hot
tub with a great view of the bay!

June 2, day 30 Pacifica to Santa Cruze

June 2, day 30 Pacifica to Santa Cruze
Starting odo 7435

The climb out of Pacifica

David drives us back to our bikes, and we get a pretty early start to
the day, which is good because the first obstacle is a rather large
hill, perhaps 700 of elevation gain.

Then we proceed to Half Moon Bay, where we stop to get some lunch.
Its overpriced but pleasant, and we putz around the town a bit before
leaving.
The next stretch of road has many beaches  along it, but not much else
in terms of water and food until you come to Davenport, where there
are a few businesses, one of which was having live music and a party!
We were a bit concerned about getting to Santa Cruz but the road
flattens out and we get a tailwind so progress improves greatly and
we're in Santa Cruz rather quickly.
We get a motel and Shyam calls an old friend, John, and we all go out
to eat and spend the evening talking. He takes to an Italian place
where we meet its proprietor, Luico, who is a very nice and loquacious
guy, and we barely escape to go back to the motel room and sleep!

May 31, day 28. Rest day in SF

Brainwash Laundromat

May 31, day 28. Rest day in SF
So, I decided it was time for a rest day, no bike riding, and why not in SF?
We get up a little late and get our breakfast- a bagel with butter and
jam with tea. Then I go to charge devices and check email. I reviewed
photos and make a list of the ones I want to post to the blog. The
uploads seem slow at the hostel, so we decide to take the netbook with
us and use some other Internet connection.
One goal for today is to go to the REI so that Shyam can get another
pair of shorts. On the way we stop at the Marin bicycles factory
store. I am tempted by their jerseys which are very reasonably priced.
After visiting REI, we eat at Roccos where we have appetizers. (it's
happy hour!)
Across the street is a place with wifi called Brainwash. It is a coin
laundry/coffee house (with beer!) and there is an open mike tonight
with several people and groups playing.
We hook up the laptop and I start uploading the photos. It is takes
perhaps an hour to do them all.
Now were just listening to the music while a guy at the next table
works on a very intricate pen and ink drawing. He tells me he's worked
on it for about 100 hours. We are on the corner of Folsom and Langton.
The bathroom here is called the reading room, about half the tiles on
the walls have quotations on them - not graffiti, they were made with
the quotes. Like "when I leave a restaurant I want to have enough gas
to start a Shell station - Tom Waits"