To Tarantino this story, we decided to drive south to San Diego. The
car charger is plugged in so we can finally share some happenings
along the way.
When we left San Francisco Wednesday morning and headed north to see
the Golden Gate Bridge, a local told us that a trail would take us
around the east side. Turns out it doesn't and you get to venture
through the up and down hills of San Fran. I'm thankful that we had
fresh legs because we ended up putting in 65 miles that day weaving
around the city streets. We caught a lot of historic sites and biked
through Candle Stick Park and Giant stadium. We finally got to the
bridge later in the day and it re juiced our legs. Walking up to the
bridge outlook, we came across an Aussies couple who had travelled the
entire US, giving us a ton of tips and a great perspective on the
trip. This won't be a "vacation" in the traditional sense but an
adventure in the purest form.
Crossing the bridge was amazing. The bike lane was closed off so it
was packed with all kinds of runner, bikers, and tourist. Right off
the bridge was Alcatraz looming in the distance surrounded by nothing
but water in all directions. You could coast down the bridge at 20 mph
and catch all the sights going into the east side of the bay. The
other side of the bridge is a small fishing town known for cyclist
giving us plent of places to ask directions and pump up the tires.
After a couple of empty suggestions, we found out about a camp site
called China Camp south on the peninsula. After about 15 miles, it
became obvious that we took the wrong way around the moutain, taking
the verticle route instead. Our legs were giving out, started to run
low on water, and weren't convinced this place existed until a random
lady sitting at a lookout pointed us just one mile down the summit to
China Camp. We pitched camp before the sun set and had our reward,
Chunky Man soup and string cheese.
Evan strung our bear bag about 50 yards from us to keep away critters.
Sure enough, as soon as we finished playing cards and went to our
tents we heard the pitter patter of a bum rifling though the site and
approached us. We talked him out of bothering us and he left towards
our bear bag. Wanting to save out peanut butter and bagels, we brought
the bag back and Evan put it in the tent. Later around 2 am, we woke
up to a pack of coyotes about 20 yards from the tents. I wispered to
Evan, "Dude, just throw it!" Evan leaned out the rain fly and chucked
the bag away and the howling stopped. Sadly, we found the bag had
exploded and the bagels were gone. Nature:1 Us:0.
Day two, we headed around the bay by bus because none of the bridges
would let us cross, putting us in El Cerrito. From there we were
shooting for Tilden Park to camp, making us start to finally head
east. Turns out that Sorento road that goes to Tilden is straight up
for 2.5 miles. We climbed for hours at 5 mph in our smallest ring. At
the top of this thing, you could see the whole city and everything we
climbed over, it was pretty rewarding. Our legs were on fire and we
needed somewhere to sleep. We approached a church and talked to the
pastor. She handed us the key to the whole church and cooked us dinner
as we got to finally shower. It's peole like this that make the trip
worth while. I've never seen a family more willing to help strangers
and we sure needed it. It was that night that we found out about
adventurecyclist.org
and decided to head south to take the southern tier through the
country.
Day three, we took the Bart train back into San Francisco to Daily
City. From here we headed to Half Moon Beach. To get there, we had to
go up a road with a turn aptly named Devils Slide that had about a 6
inch shoulder and a straight down drop. Luckly, we got to hitch hike
down the mountain into Half Moon. You could not pick a better place to
camp. It was right on the beach and sea breeze put you right to sleep.
Day four was a trek to Santa Cruz. We finally got to ride down highway
1 and follow the coast south. The road wound around the neighboring
mountains and edged the Pacific Ocean. No wonder it's rated the best
drive in America and no better way to see it than on a bike under your
own strength. The terrain was very hilly but were able to average 12.5
mph for 57 miles, not bad for two Florida boys on 80 lb bikes.
Santa Cruz is a cool town, very much a college town. Bars everywhere,
live music, bikers, surfers, everything chill. We were able to set up
a place to stay on
warmshowers.org with two teachers, Jessica and Tod.
They were fellow cyclist who were preparing to do a long trek
themselves. We exchanged cycling information and had some great
conversation giving us a great end to a long, productive day of riding.
Day 5 we started south to Big Sur to camp after breakfast with Jessica
and Tod who had a long ride that day also. Since highway 1 was closed
to cyclist when it was a divided road, we had to get creative with
routes that surprisingly put us in Pebble Beach. Golfers, believe the
hype, it's amazing, I'll play it some other time. Following Pebble
Beach was a strip called 17 Mile Road which was straightdown hill in
our direction. I don't know about Evan but I was white knuckle around
some of those turns at 35+ mph. Going that fast on a bike loaded up,
the bike wants to pitch over around corners so it gets a little
freaky. Coming out of that free fall we hit highway 1 and followed
that on the coast again. After our 65th mile, we started to look for a
place to camp because we knew we weren't going to make Big Sur. We
came across this really nice cottage and buzzed the doorbell. This
sweet voice came across the speeker from a lady named Yolanda, who
looked like a fratty Mrs.Clever who let us in. Her husban, Ron, told
us that people come across their place all the time and we could tent
in their side yard. If they hadn't let us in, we would have been
camping on a lookout where a cop surely would have ruined the night.
Yolanda cooked us breakfast and Ron told us that traveling anymore
south was on the shy side of stupid and convinced us to head back
north to catch a bus.
That brings us to day six, where we headed back up the mountain to
Monterey, catching a bus to Salenas. Here we rented a car to get to
San Diego to get our maps from
adventurecyclist.org and finally start
headed east, heading back home.
The pitures are of the mountain range just east of the highway 1 and
south of San Jose. Second is of us sweating out a trek to San Diego
with a promised midnight stop, love ya momma!
