Day 10 El Capitan to Santa Barbara

Miles 37 (Total 422.22)

It was relatively quite an easy ride today.  Everyone kind of slept in this morning (7:30 breakfast instead of 6:30) and laid back on getting the ride done.  It was about a 20 mile ride to get to Santa Barbara, and while there most visted the REI here to get re-stocked on items that were needed or that have broke in the meantime, etc.  I always like to go to an REI store, just to look at all the cool stuff.  There were just a few things I needed, batteries and I broke my tire tool when I had the flat and needed to get a new one and that was it.  We then went to a place and had a nice brunch.

We then rode another 17 miles to Carpinteria where we are spending the night at the state beach here.  It was TJ and my turn to prepare dinner again. Since TJ is such a good cook, I just left it to him to figure out what to eat.  We prepared Ahi tuna with a pesto pasta and a salad.  The tuna that they bought to eat was $25 a pound. I couldn't believe it.  It was really good.  TJ cooked half of the tuna the way you would probably get it in a restaurant, only seared on both sides and pretty raw in the middle and cooked half the way that I would prefer having it cooked and that is well done.  I did try the half cooked version, and I must say it is good if you can keep from seeing what you are eating.  Anyway, we received some great comments on the dinner.

We rode through the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.  What a place for a university, right on the coast.

Peer in Santa Barbara

And beach

 

Beach we are camping on tonight.

View from here towards the mountains to the east.

This is Catherine and her husband Dave. They are from Seattle, WA.  Dave is the one that is good friends with Bill that I introduced a few days back.  He was originally from Texas as well until marrying Catherine.  Catherine worked as an attorney for REI and recently retired in June.  They have done quite a bit of bicycle travel over the years and are great to travel with and talk to.

This is Phil on the left from Minnisota and Buddy on the right from Irvine, CA.  I don't know that much about Phil and he is a very quiet man.  I will have to do my best in the next few days to find more about him. He was the last one to sign up for the trip, signing up only days before the trip started. 

Buddy is a great person.  We have gotten to be good friends in the short time we have been together.  He loves to ride bike and has done a lot of it through the years, but is feeling that this may be his last extended trip.  I hate to see that happen, he loves it so much but his knees bother him quite a bit. He let me take his tire boot to place in my tire this morning because of my puncture problem and then he bought me another as a spare as we visited REI today. Great man that I feel a blessing to get to know. He is just so positive and sees the best in everything.

Well, that is about it for tonight.  We are sleeping next to the tracks and the Amtrac goes by in one direction or another about every hour.

 

I sleep with ear plugs, so I should be good, but this would be a great way to see the coast.  Many times it is traveling right down the coast.

Thought I would leave you with the sight I see the most in a day.  I took this on yesterday's ride.

As you can tell, going down a hill.

Day 9 Pismo Beach to El Capitan Beach State Park

Miles 85 (Total 385.22)

Climb ?? My altimeter is not working.

Because of the mileage we had to do today, everyone was up pretty early to get ready to go. I got up at 6:30 and things were moving well before then.  Here is. picture of the group morning table. They lay out cereal, oatmeal, fruit and sandwich making material.

I decided I was going to attend a worship meeting at the LDS meeting house in Pismo, so I knew that leaving before 8:00 was going to not help out at all since the meeting started at 9.  The church house was about 2.5 miles off route, which added about 5 miles to the total day.  It was nice to be there and the people were so nice.  Many came up and introduced themselves and talked about cycling in one way or another.  The reason so many came up and talked might have had something to do with the way I was dressed.

There was a lady that talked about how God knows what is going on in each of our lives and cares about each of us individually.  I do beleive that and see it in my own and other's lives.   I was hoping the meeting wouldn't go long, because I was needing to get on the road.  I had probably done about 8 miles of the 80 that needed to be riden.  It didn't go long and I was back on the road at about 10:30.

We did ride thru some more agriculture.

And did some climbing through the hills.

We had a couple passes that we had to climb over today.  This is something that a cyclist always likes to see.

It was unseasonably warm, so we had to make sure the water intake was happening. There was not much riding along the coast thru the day, but ended up back on the coast this evening.  About 4:30, I was about 3 miles from camp and I got a flat.

That piece of metal went through my tire and punctured the tube on both sides.  I took the tire off and put a new tube in and tried to air it up and I couldn't get the air to stay in so took the tire back apart and the tube out and found it had a hole in it.  I then had to patch the tube and put it back together.  The whole process probably took close to an hour. I am worried about the size of the hole in the tire, so I will probably take it all apart again tomorrow and put a boot on the tire itself, so the the tube doesn't squeeze out of the hole.

Because of the long day, the group funds paid for a dinner out tonight, so that we didn't have to cook and clean up.  That was welcome. Everyone is beat, so they have all gone to their tents.  I need to turn in as well.

Goodnight.

Day 8 Layover day in Pismo Beach

Miles 0 (Total 300.22)

Climb 0

It is always nice to have a lay over day. I always wish they came on a Sunday, but they never do.  I guess the traveling bicyclists would rather have a day when things are open than closed. We all slept in today and planned to have breakfast at 8 or so.  By 7:30, I had all the tent I needed and got up and breakfast preparations were in the works.  This is another good thing about the van, is that we were able to carry coolers and so we had eggs, bacon and breakfast potatoes.  That was a first and it was delicious. TJ, the one I shared an Uber with on the first day is quite a good cook and he was heavily involved in making breakfast. It really was nice.

Here we are enjoying breakfast.

While we are discussing this picture, the man in the yellow is Texas Bill from Houston.  I have met quite a few Bill's as I have toured on the bicycle and every one of them is a great guy.  This Bill worked through his life as a truck trailer chassis repairman.  He has never married and lives in the same home that he grew up in.  He has a great sense of humor and was telling us yesterday that he has not cut his hair or beard since 1969. He travels with another couple that are on the trip (2nd and 3rd persons on the right of the table, Catherine and Dave) and goes with them on many bicycle trips as well as other places they go. Dave and Bill were friends in high school and they invite him to go even though they don't live in the same places any more. That is a pretty cool friendship.

The first person on the right is Estaban.  This is his first touring experience.  He is 68 and wants to travel with his son next June cross country and is trying to get some experience in long distance cycling.  He is eager to learn and is constantly asking questions, which is really kind of fun to help him.  He delivered mail for his career and has a wife and just the one son.

Today was catch up day.  My stuff really needed a laundry, so that is the first place I went.  I just chuck everything in one load and wash on warm water and dry it all together.  I don't think that I have had a problem with this system yet.

Then I went down town to look at Pismo.  They really do have a nice beach here.  It is long and clean.  I did take shoes off and venture out and that water was so cold I don't know how people get in it.  The kids were having the time of their life however.

I'm not too good at selfies.

Then tonight we all went out to a Mexican dinner together.  It was a great day and we all got some much needed rest. I hope the day was great for each of you as well.

Goodnight.

Day 7 San Simeon to Pismo Beach

Miles 54.89 (Total 300.22)

Climb 2,050

Today was a day of riding through quite a few towns. We went through Cayucos, Morro Bay, San Luis Obisbo and are spending a couple nights in Pismo Beach. It was nice to be off Highway 1 and riding some side roads.  It is kind of like putting a puzzle together to get from start to finish.  The penalty for getting it wrong can be quite harsh in that you are going to ride some additional miles, but today went well. As far as scenery goes, today was a little less dramatic. We started with some good sights and then it turned to just riding through towns.

Morro Bay

As we got away from the ocean, it turned hot. It was about 92 through here. Riding the road above was traffic free, but very hot.  I started to run out of water and rode into San Luis Obisbo right at the needful time.

San Luis Obisbo was an area that my daughter Kailtlin served in on her LDS mission to this part of California.  She served there in 2013 and 2014.  I was thinking of her today as I rode through and am very proud of her for the service she gave to this area.  I even rode past the church that she served with.

I will try and get pictures of those I am riding with over the next few days.

These two are our tour guides. Chuck on the left is from Charlotte, North Carolina and Mark from Denver, Colorado.  They do have real jobs and sign up to take a tour for a certain amount of time.  I asked them why they want to take tours and they said it was a great way to get paid to do what we are doing. They are great to travel with.  One drives the van one day and then rides the bike sweep the next. The one driving the van also gets a shopping list from the couple cooking that evening and stops by a grocery store and gets the food.  That really helps save some time for us.

This is Thomas and Simon from Toronto Canada.  Thomas is a retired school teacher and Simon is a doctor.

Well it's been kind of a boring post.  I apologize for that.  I hope you are all well.  Goodnight.

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.