Day 61-65: Big Sur, Santa Cruz and San Francisco

Day 61: Cayucos to Big Sur, 93 miles

Day 62: Big Sur to Santa Cruz, 80 miles

Day 63: Santa Cruz to San Fran, 83 miles

Day 64: San Fran, 0 miles

Day 65: San Fran, 0 miles

On Monday morning we had some coffee and oatmeal in the morning and then started our ride en route to Big Sur. The ride was a pretty tough one as it took us up and down and up and down again following the Pacific Coast Highway. And as tough as it was it was still one of my favorite rides because the entire day we had such amazing views. A little after leaving Cayucos we stopped at Elephant Seal Vista Point in San Simeon where hundreds of Elephant Seals were sprawled out along the shoreline. They were really disgusting to watch in all reality with the smell and their their pig-like mannerisms but, to see so many of them was quite a vision. After that we started the climbs up and down of between 300-800 ft. which lasted the rest of the day. But, with the views that we were getting I really can't complain. The ride felt magical. We got into Big Sur around 5:00 p.m. and decided to stop at The Big Sur Taphouse for dinner and beers before we found our campsite for the night.

After filling up on a delicious barbecue chicken sandwich and a few beers we rode another few miles through the park to Andrew Molera State Park and because it was after hours we got to "free camp" at the park as long as we were up and out of the place before 7:00 a.m. when the Park Rangers came back which we planned on doing. So we hunkered down in our tents and fell asleep rather quickly although we did have some visits throughout the night including a raccoon that left a rather incriminating footprint on my pannier and a few curious skunks (thankfully we weren't sprayed)

The next morning we were up and riding at 6:45 a.m. and the roads and weather were all moderate and in our favor. One of the highlights of the day was our swim in Monterey Bay after we'd stopped in Marina State Park for a break. As we were wading out into the quite reasonably temperate bay waters we were greeted by some dolphins and a seal that were enjoying a little afternoon fish snack in the bay.

From there we pushed on and were then greeted by Paul, "the road angel," as he called himself. Every Tuesday he comes to this same place off of Pacific Coast Highway in his Kermit the Frog inspired RV and offers water and cookies to traveling cyclists. We had a great time taking with him and then we rode another 8 miles to Moss Landing where we stopped for lunch at a really great deli.

We took a rather long lunch break and finally got back on our bikes at 3:30 p.m. And did the final 30 miles into Santa Cruz rather easily. Unfortunately, no warmshowers hosts came through for us, but I was lucky enough to have Rob along with me who had a friend that was a professor at UC Santa Cruz and she wonderfully allowed us to crash at her house.

The next day we rode into San Francisco to finish our ride together. We split up just as we got into the city. Rob went off to stay with his friends and I took off towards my warmshowers host. I arrived at Heidi and Martin's house and had another amazing night with them and their daughter eating dinner and drinking beers and talking about our mutual love of bicycle travelling. Heidi and Martin are about a week away from starting their own bicycle trip that will take them through Amsterdam and Germany.

Thankfully, Heidi and Martin allowed me to stay another night with them in San Fran so today I've been travelling around the city exploring as much as I could. I rode out from their house and went through Baker Beach that had some amazing views of the Golden Gate Bridge and then down into North Beach where I got breakfast at Caffe Trieste, once a Beat Generation hangout. After that I walked down to City Lights Bookstore, owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, to peruse the shelves of beat poets and writers for some inspiration and then stumbled down the block, passed Jack Kerouac Alley, and into Vesuvio Cafe, another place that beat era writers flocked to back in the day for beers and more inspiration.

The rest of the day today will involve a few more beers and some more exploring and then back to Heidi and Martin's house to end the night. Tomorrow I will cross the Golden Gate Bridge and go to Bolinas, which has a whole lure of its own that I am excited to see.

(Edit: ended up not going to Bolinas as the warmshowers host there was unavailable and stayed in San Fran an extra day.)

Elephant Seal Vista Point, San Simeon, CA