San Diego Zoo

Mexican Border/Firing Range

Last week or so

Hearst Castle

A bit of San Fran

Senior Lesbians

July 13.
The morning was foggy, something we have gotten used to. We broke down camp and hit the road. The morning was spent riding through strawberry fields, lots and lots of strawberry fields. After about an hour of riding, we hit a bike path. According to the maps, it was going to be almost 20 miles on the path. Awesome! More than half our ride on the bike path was along beach and coastline. Amazing! It brought us through Marina, Sand City, and Seaside, before heading into Monterey. This is where the maps take you off the coast. Now, on the Southern Tier we met a couple who started in San Fran, rode down the San Diego and were headed for Austin. When I mentioned I planned on doing the Pacific Coast, they started telling me all this good info. One of the things I remembered was 17 Mile Drive, in Monterey. So instead of following our maps inland, we kept hugging the coast. Eventually the bike path ended and we got onto Oceanview Dr which turned into Sunset. Then we found 17 Mile Drive. For all you golf enthusiasts, 17 Mile Drive brought us through various coastal golf courses, with the final one being Pebble Beach. It was the best ride so far. And I forgot to mention the sun came out in full force right before we got to Monterey. Gorgeous views, beautiful weather, not much more you can ask for. By the end of our day, we ended up doing 77 miles into Big Sur, which was also awesome. We got to the lodge by 8 and grabbed a few things before we were going to find the hiker/biker sites. As we were getting on our bikes, two self-titled "senior lesbians" started talking to us. They offered us showers in their cabin, and also the two win beds in the spare room! Road magic at its finest. So to end the best day of riding yet, we got real showers and real beds. The end.

So we've been buzzin' right along, over 1200 miles already. On the 4th of July we stopped riding by 1 and just relaxed the rest of the day. There were very limited services, so we carried beer for like 20 miles; I filled a pannier with ice and the beer kept real cold on one of our hotter days. We rode the Avenue of the Giants and also camped in a state park there. Our string of nice days came to an end though, and we've been riding in some heavy fog and light mist for the past 2 days. We also saw the blue/green bus pass us two days in a row, and then when we got to camp last night, it was parked in the spot next to us. The owners were very nice and asked us over for dinner. It was awesome. They even made us breakfast and coffee this morning. We'll be getting to San Fran tomorrow, and probably a rest day on Saturday.

California!

(The last two pics are dogs chasing a lure at the dog show)
We crossed into California at the end of our ride on the 1st. Finally! The California coast is the whole reason I wanted to do this ride. All the cyclists I've met, either in bike shops or on the road, have said you have to ride the California coast, and then they start rattling off towns, Big Sur, Monterey, Santa Cruz.... Well, I still have a lot of Northern California to get through, but I am very excited. We are about halfway, 930 miles out of 1,850. We should be in San Francisco in about a week. Tonight, we are in Ferndale. We are staying at the county fairgrounds and there is a dog show going on all weekend. Tomorrow we are going to be riding a short day, hopefully being in camp by 1, giving us time to enjoy the 4th.