Day 6 Limekiln State Part to San Simeon State Park

Miles 44.13 (Total 245.33)

Climb 1,730

We had less climbing today, but the highest hill so far to get over.  I think it would be a stretch to call it a mountain, but it was at about 1,000 ft.  The grade of the hill was pretty good, however.  It just takes awhile at 4 to 5 mph to get up it.  The "predominantly" north winds have been helping us along these last two days, which has been so nice.  In fact this afternoon on some pretty flat terrain, I was moving along at 20 mph, which was great.

The first part of the day, we had pretty much the same story as yesterday.  We just rode along the pacific coast, with its ups and downs, etc.  I will try and explain what is really great about riding a bicycle down the coast. We are riding south and being a bicyclist, we ride over on the very left of the road. That gives us a great view of the ocean as we ride and most of the time, I can hear the waves crashing into the rocks and crashing into the rocks creates a little mist that you can smell the salt and the ocean.  It's like three of your senses are just having a great time.

Also along today's route, we were able to stop at a beach in which elephant seals come and spend time on the beach.  Apparently, this time of the year the juveniles come, so they don't have the long noses that the adults will have. In December and January the adults arrive to have their pups and mate.  That would be a great time to see them.  I was told that when any of them arrive, they are not feeding, so they just spend all their time on the beach and actually lose quite a bit of their weight.

They get up on the beach and flip sand on to themselves for sun screen protection.

We also had a chance to tour the Hearst mansion in San Simeon.  That was quite a place. William Randolf Hearst, built the "castle" starting in 1919 and it was in some form of construction until 1947. It is known for its Mediteranian, and Spanish revival architecture.  To me, it seems crazy that someone would build something like that.  They say he liked to collect ceilings, so many of the ceilings were imported in from around the world and were very old. The castle combined is more than 90,000 square feet and the swimming pool cost about $7,000,000 in today's money.

His father ended up giving William a sizable inheritance made mostly from silver mining in Nevada and of course William Randolph made even more in his media ventures.

The $7M pool being renovated.  It leaked too much water.

These were imported from Egypt and are 3,500 years old. You can see the old stone that is darker and the underlying structure was built to portray them.

 The inside pool.

He ended up giving the castle to the State of California in the 1950's and has retained a right to still use the property whenever he likes.  Some of it is not available to the public and the family still uses it.

We are staying in a campground tonight that is in an area in which the County leaders have made a law because of the water shortage that public entities are not able to use water for bathroom facilities and showers and such.  So had to do without a shower tonight.  Even at the Hearst Castle, the inside bathrooms were closed and porta potties were outside.  The bathrooms here are locked up and porta potties are to used. Crazy! Like campers are using all the water??? Had a nice dinner of chicken frittatas tonight.  Goodnight.

Day 5 Monterey to Limekiln State Park

Mileage 56.3 (Total 201.2)

Climb 4,300 ft

Last night was a cold night.  The temperature was only in the low 50's, but the wind just made it feel so cold.  The tent did shelter us from the wind, but it gets dark here at 7:30 and that makes a long evening when you need to get in the tent at 7:30.  Another thing that cold weather does is it drops the dew point, so that in the morning your tent is very wet.  Probably mostly from the humidity coming from me breathing in here all night. Consequently, I had to pack up a went tent this morning.

It doesn't take it too long to dry out once we arrive in our next campground.  The riding today was so much different from yesterday, it felt we were in a new state.  We didn't see any agriculture, but the views of vistas from the mountains leading into the Pacific were just beautiful.  I don't imagine that the pictures I will include will to much justice. The terrain was some difficult riding.  It was just up and down all day long, hence the feet in climbing.  It seemed I was going downhill at 25 or 30 mph for three minutes and then climbing the next hill for 15. I am quite beat tonight.

There really isn't too much to write about tonight. It was pretty much just the scenic coastal highway.  We are camped at this state park that is sitting underneath Highway 1 above us.  We have a stream beside our camp and the waves of the Pacific rolling in.  I hope it makes for good background sound to sleep.

We don't have any wifi or cell service, so I will try and stop somewhere tomorrow to send this.  We are again staying at a campground tomorrow night that may not have access either.

Breakfast this morning with Bill from Texas, Simon from Toronto, Buddy from California and Mike also from California. All great people.  I have found that I am still kind of young one.

Should have left this out.

You can see how the road runs along the coast in the background.  It doesn't much look like it, but it is really climbing.

Sur Naval Base.

 

Where we are camped with the highway above.  Goodnight.

Day 4 Santa Cruz to Monterey

Mileage 46.15 (Total 144.9)

Climb 1,700 ft

It was my birthday today and other than not being able to spend it with my family, I couldn't have asked for a better day.  The weather was beautiful, the ride exceeded my expectations and the food and company was great.

We did start out the day with some bad news.  One of our group quit the trip today.  Her name is Jennifer from Sacramento and she said that the requirements of the ride were just too much. She had been having a hard time sleeping in the tent and between not getting good rest and the riding up hills and against the wind, it was too much.  We will miss her. She is a great lady.  She knew that I forgot my bike lock on coming on the trip and as she left she wanted me to take hers.  I told her, "I am not going to take your lock" and she demanded that I do so. She mentioned that she lost her mom recently and she was taking this trip with the life insurance money she received and riding with her mom in mind, so it made me feel bad she couldn't continue on with us.

Today's ride was just beautiful.  We rode through agriculture areas and it was just so much fun for me to see all the different crops that are being grown and harvested right now.  I saw all these things being harvested in one day:

Strawberries

Celery

Artichokes

Mushrooms

Iceberg Lettuce, and cauliflower, which I don't have a picture of.  It was great to see all that.  I guess the farmer blood still flows in me. The route had us get off of highway 1 and took us on all these quiet country roads through all these farms and it was just fun.

We also rode into Monterey, California today.  This would be a neat place to spend a little more time in. They have a fisherman's Wharf and there are great places to eat and do if you have the time. I walked through all the restaurants and each one is giving you a sample of their clam chowder and you could eat quite a bit of it just by getting all the samples. All of them were really good. I was able to stop at a fish house and have halibut for lunch.

Thanks Mom for the birthday gift.

I guess this was my birthday lunch.  It was delicious. I know pictures of food usually don't look that good, but this still looks good. Tonight, Simon and Thomas (they both are from Toronto, Canada) cooked dinner.  They made this chicken with broccoli, stuffing and cheese in tin foil dinner that was delicious.  For dessert, they fried pound cake in butter and then added Rolos and strawberries. That was delicious as well. As you can see, pretty good eating for the birthday.

A little more on Monterey. There is a place here called Cannery Row, which is all shops and restaurants now, but it was made famous by Steinbeck in his book called Cannery Row. I have never read it, but probably should.

Well that is about it. I think I am feeling a little bit of heartburn coming on. Kind of understandable, right. I hope you all are well..

Moss Landing were I ate the fish.

 

Fisherman's Wharf

Day 3 Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz

Miles 59.26 (98.75 total)

Climb 2,526 ft

We woke to a very cool morning. It was about 49 when we woke and is got up to about 64 today.  It was also a very gray day.  It seems that the overcast fogginess never left.  One of the selling points for the trip was that the wind "predominantly" blows from the north, but we have yet to see those winds. We fought the south wind all day today. That was probably the hardest part of the day.  It even grated on you more than the climbs.  On the coast, you climb quite a bit.  They are not large hills, but you are constantly climbing over the bluffs overlooking the ocean.

The gray day took a lot of the color out of the day that would have been good to see.  The ocean just looked gray as well and you couldn't see out very far.

We also saw quite a bit of agriculture today.  There was mostly Brussel sprout plants (definitely not my favorite) and artichokes. I would imagine as we head south, there will be more and more agriculture.

We did stop in the town of Davenport and I had a delicious bowl of clam chowder with Catherine and Dave from Seattle and Bill from Texas.  It was a much needed stop as my body was hungry for something other than a peanut butter sandwich.

It was fun riding thru Santa Cruz.  There are some beautiful views of the ocean and the boardwalk.  They do have a nice roller coaster on the boardwalk that would have been fun to ride, but it wasn't open. One thing Santa Cruz is known for is it is the surf boarding capital of the world. Well maybe not capital, but there is a surf boarding museum here.  I should have gotten a picture of surfers, because there is a lot of them.

It was really an easy day to navigate today since we stayed on highway 1 most of the day.  There was always a nice shoulder that kept us away from the traffic.

Well, as you can tell, I don't have a lot to write about the day.  It was a nice day, but I am definitely feeling the miles, the wind, and the climbs in my legs.  

Map meeting last night.

View on the other side (east) of the road. Pretty dry looking.

Brussel Sprouts

I think artichokes. 

Santa Cruz, there are some nice places along the ocean.

Seals looking for a great place to kick back. Under the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

Day 2 Golden Gate Bridge to Half Moo Bay

Miles 39.5

Things started a little foggy and cool today.  The temperature getting started was 56 degrees and it got up to 61 today. Because of the cool and the fog, no one was real anxious to get going, but we did leave the hostel at about 9:00.  We had about 5 miles to ride to get to the bridge and the city of San Francisco and the bridge were still in a bit of fog, but it was pretty.  On the bridge, they have one side dedicated to pedestrians and the other side is for cyclists.  At the time in the morning that we were there, there weren't many, but as we came into the hostel the day before, that bridge was packed with bikers.  I am glad that it wasn't that way.

We were then to ride thorouh Golden Gate Park, but they were having this blue grass festival and had some of the roads closed through the park, so we rode around.  I did want to see into the park, so I took a detour and went in.  While in, I stopped and was listening to LDS conference and the blue grass bands started to play.  That was a little difficult to consentrate on conference while the bands were playing.

 

That would be a great festival to attend someday.  It is for three days and it's free.  We then made our way thru San Fran.  Some of the streets in this town are crazy.

But the houses and all is really cool. We then rode next to the ocean, which I never get tired of.

We are in Half Moon Bay state park tonight.  It is right by the ocean and we get to sleep listening to the crash of waves. Me and TJ (from Indianapolis) had to cook tonight.  TJ had the idea of cooking vegetables in a curry, coconut milk sauce and putting that over rice.  It was delicious.  One thing that is nice is that the van that carries all our gear goes to the store and gets the groceries for our meals, so all we have to do is make the list.  That is nice as it saves a lot of time for the riders. It sure did get cool quickly as the sun went down.

This is the view out of the tent. Good night all.

Day 1 Meet the group

RMiles 0

Well, I am sitting in the Boise airport waiting for the flight to board.  I slept fitfully last night and then at 3:15, just got tired of laying in bed and got up, got ready and left. I met up with Kait and Jace at McDonalds to get some breakfast and they are taking the pickup to park for the two weeks.  It was good to see them and they did a lot to calm my nerves.

I really don't know why I have been so nervous about this trip.  Truth be known, I think I am always this way leaving for anything.  But I would imagine just the unknown, whether I have trained enough, meeting new people, did my bike arrive in good shape, what is the weather going to do to us, all these things have been flooding my mind.  I am also sure all will be ok.

We are going to be riding from San Francisco to the Mexico boarder, right down the pacific coast.  It should be some spectacular scenery and some great riding.  We will average about 55 miles per day. I shipped my bike Fed Ex to the hostel that we are staying in tonight. This trip will be a little different than those I have gone on in that we will have a van carrying our gear.  I will still carry the days supplies, but that will make quite a difference. As of yet I have very little knowledge of the people that will be part of the trip.  I think the trip is a full trip, meaning that there will be 13 riders including myself and excluding the two tour leaders.

My transportation to San Francisco

We have quite the diverse group.  There are a couple from Toronto, Canada and the rest of us are scattered out across the US.  It will be interesting getting to know them.  The tour leaders made us a spaghetti dinner which I was so hungry by the time we ate.  I ate this morning before getting on the plane with Kait and Jace and didn't eat the rest of the day until dinner.  I don't know how that happened, but once I got to the hostel, there was no place to eat.

The Marin Headlands Hostel

The bike all put back together and the box broke down for transport.

Inside the hostel.

Good night all!!

Pre Trip thoughts

I am about to head out on a new bicycling adventure.  I have taken a couple bike trips this year.  My son Chris and I, took three days and cycles Teton National Park and some of Yellowstone National Park.  It was wonderful to be with him for those days and do something we both love to do in a place that has such beauty. 

I also took a trip this year that has become called Manscursion 1.  It was a bicycle trip that I took with my two sons and two sons in law.  We rode essentially from Sun Valley to close to Challis (skipping Galena).  We did have a SAG wagon, which required one of us to always drive, but we had a great time.  I hope the young had as much fun as I did.

The group before we took off.

The boys at redfish lake

Brandon taking a rest

Stephen trying to catch dinner