Boxing up the Bikes

Yesterday we said goodbye to or bicycles, Lady Borealis (thanks for your help with that one, Amy) and Onward (Lyon's mantra throughout the trip). It was like dismembering our children, closing them up in boxes and telling them, "No, honey, you didn't do anything wrong." Okay, so it wasn't that dramatic, but it was sad!
First we had to find bike boxes, which we easily scored at Bobcat Bicycles. Dragging them back to the motel was another story. But we giggled as we tried to hold onto our 56 by 31 inch boxes, spinning in the wind and attempting to walk straight.
Back at the motel we separated out what we wanted to keep (clothes, toiletries, journals) and what we wanted to send back (tent, cook set, bike shorts). Then we loaded our bikes up with one pannier each, and even invented a way of attaching the boxes to the bikes, which involved bungees and balancing the boxes on a pedal, prohibiting any backwards motion.
We geared up for the 15 block walk to the nearest UPS store. I would never think to look for any other shipping providers because my uncle works for UPS and our family is loyal to brown. But after one block of trying to keep my bike in a straight line, I looked up and a FedEx store was staring me in the face. I easily caved. We stopped and packaged them up right there. Sorry uncle Frank! I'm weak!
In 15 minutes we'll walk to the Salinas Amtrak station and hop on the Coastal Starlight which will stick mostly to the coast so we get to see the scenery we are missing by not riding our bikes. We'll say goodbye to Steinbeck country. He's from Salinas so there's a museum and statutes around town. I picked up Cannery Row now that Lyon is finished, and was reading it in the window of a coffee shop yesterday. A man walked by with his dog and slowed, tapping the glass to get my attention. He pointed to his shirt and I saw that it had a quote by John Steinbeck on it, "I guess there can never be enough books." I smiled and gave him a thumbs up, he returned the gesture and kept walking.
On to L.A. Hina, here we come.

Big Sur

Our ride from Monterey to Big Sur seemed short. The weather was kind of overcast, but there were still some beautiful views of the rugged coastline. The hills were mostly tame with only one cape that swung in and around a cove, swooping low to sea level before climbing steeply back up. As soon as we left the small town of Carmel behind, we were already in Big Sur territory, which gets its name from a phrase in Spanish: el pais grande del sur. Big Sur is famous for being sort of wild and isolated. This section of Highway 1 was one of the first to be declared a National Scenic Byway. 

Along the way I passed a woman who had pulled over and was pacing nervously as she looked out over a field between the road and the coast. I was going slow enough on a steady uphill, that our eyes met and she felt she needed to share with me that a cow just over there was going into labor. "What?" I said, as I pulled over onto the dirt turnout. Sure enough, there was a large caramel-colored cow lying on her side with a bloated belly. Every once in a while, she would pick her head up and sort of roll her eyes before thumping heavily back onto the grass. The lady I was standing next to had grown up on a farm and seemed to know what stage the cow was in, contractions were close together. Eventually I left, knowing I didn't have all day to stand there and watch a cow give birth, but the woman stayed, saying she just wanted to make sure she was alright. "I've had 3 natural childbirths of my own..." she said, trailing off, not really making eye contact with me as she sent encouraging mental vibes over the fence to the cow.

Part way we met Thomas and Tim, two touring cyclists from Oakland, CA. They were just out for a week and had taken off without any maps or books or anything. They figured they could just following Hwy 1 the entire way. That worked for them, they said, until it was time to find a campsite, or when the highway turned to freeway and didn't allow bicycles any longer. Using our guide book, we directed them to the best place to stop, just before a large hill: Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park, and there would be groceries in town just before the park. We parted ways and said, "See you there." It was clear that this park was a destination for lots of people. The hike and bike camping area was gigantic, but we still had to share a table and fire pit because they were all taken. And the next day while roaming the park looking for a shower and laundry, we realized just how big the park was with 200 plus campsites. The benefit of staying in a state park that also happens to be an international destination, was that there was a fancy lodge with a fire place and leather couches, a cafe and a restaurant. But we spent that first night hanging out with Thomas, Tim and 3 college kids also from the bay area who had decided to hop on their bikes, lash all the camping gear they owned to them, and head south. One of the kids, Fernando, road his single speed! "People said I couldn't do it," was his response to our incredulity, "so I had to." Apparently he was so used to riding a single speed (or "track bike" as this specific genre was called), that the hills were no problem. And his bike does have breaks (both of them), don't worry.

Tim and Thomas told us stories about life in Oakland, mostly involving cops, marijuana, a gun chase and living in "squats" with no running water and parts of the roof missing. These anecdotes sort of corroborated the craziness I'd been reading in a memoir I picked up by a local San Francisco author called, Everybody into the Pool. It was nice spending one of our last nights out surrounded by other young people who like riding their bikes. It was also a good excuse to finally go all out and buy marshmallows, Graham crackers and Hershey's chocolate. Oh, you know what happened next! (And no, for those of you who know about my marshmallow addiction, I did not throw up. Lyon kept an eye on me.)

The next day we felt strange not packing our tent up and getting a move on. Tim and Thomas took their time getting on the road, and talk of rain in the next few days didn't make me envy them. Stephanie was at the campsite as well. We've probably camped with her 4 or 5 times times over the trip, and Big Sur was her destination as well. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, she'd ridden all the way across the country. So, seeing her pack up to get on a bus and head north was really sad. "Well," she said at some point late in the morning, "I'm going to head out," and she stood up from the picnic table. "Are you going for a ride?" I asked, not realizing how late it was, and thinking she'd want to go exploring before leaving the park. "No, I'm going to wait for the bus!" I gave her a big hug and wished her luck integrating back into the "real world." She'd been out since May. Then we all watched her with kind of pathetic sighs as she walked towards her bike.

That day we had planned to ride to the top of the hill just a couple miles south so we could really see Big Sur. But it turned out to be sort of a dreary day, and we knew the coastline would be covered in fog anyhow, so we didn't even go those last 2 miles to the top of the hill. Oh well, we didn't care. We were there. Instead, we went for a hike (in our bike shoes which made for awkward footing because of the metal cleats). From the Valley Viewpoint we could see the entire Big Sur valley, and even some of the Pacific in the distance.

We spent a lot of time reading our books, Lyon finishing up Cannery Row and me concluding Everybody into the Pool. Then for dinner we shared a can of chili before heading to the cozy lodge for glasses of wine and an appetizer of roasted cheese. The next day, we had no problem catching the bus in Big Sur and getting our bikes on the racks (thank goodness we didn't have to fight any other cyclists for rack space). As we headed north toward Monterey, retracing our route from a couple of days before, it started to rain. It was a tease to think that we were only 300 miles from Los Angeles. Just another week riding our bikes would get us there. But I think, as we peered out from the warm, dry bus at other cyclists riding through the rain, we were happy to be closing this chapter of our adventure. We'll continue coasting for a little while, just without our bicycles.

Final Fundraiser Update-SWEET!

At the time of my last fundraiser update from San Fransisco, we had raised about $755. That same day I sent around one last reminder via email, and incredibly, the next time I checked the fundraiser account, we had both met and surpassed our goal.

We have raised a grand total of $1,194.84 for Posada Esperanza. I can hardly describe how that feels. In the same way that we met our cycling goal by physically arriving in San Fransisco, and then went beyond that goal by cycling further south, we met our fundraising goal of $1,000 and then managed to raise a little more.

Of course, all we did was keep a blog and send out an email. It's really all of you who are responsible for such a succesfull fundraiser.

Thank you so much! Wahooo!!!!

Love,
Alice and Lyon

To Big Sur

I just want to say I have been loving our leisurly pace since leaving San Fransisco. The day we left Pigeon Point, for example, we didn't take off until 12:30, we had an hour long lunch in Davenport, and then arrived in Santa Cruz at 4pm in time for a beer and some nachos by the beach. We rode through some fog as the sun was setting and pulled into New Brighton State Beach campsite just after the last bit of light had disappeared from the sky. It's been great. And I feel good too. We haven't pushed much past 45 miles in a day, which is good because once we pass 50 my neck usually starts to hurt and bike riding for me stops being quite as fun.

At New Brighton we ran into Stephanie, a cyclist who had been traveling with her sister when we met her at the campsite on the Avenue of the Giants. Her sister had since flown home, back to NYC, and Stephanie had kept on riding, with Big Sur as her destination. Why not? She'd already put some 6,000 miles behind her since she'd started in D.C. Incredible.

Yesterday should have been an easy 40 miles from Santa Cruz to Monterey, and as we started out, riding through strawberry fields that made the air smell like cotton candy, I was sure it would be. But we ended up facing some of the most fierce headwinds we've come across this entire trip. Just riding on flat terrain into the wind, I looked down at my spedometer, and I was going 6 miles an hour. The worst part though, was the dirt that the wind picked up in empty fields. We just turned our heads and rode through blocks of dirt blowing over the road. At the end of the day I wiped away a ring of dirt that had formed around my mouth, and my legs looked deceptively tan. But we made it, and were able to enjoy a 15 mile bike path from Seaside into Monterey, avoiding traffic the entire way.

Anyhow, today is our last day on our bicycles heading south. We are about 32 miles from Big Sur where we'll camp and then get up in the morning and ride our bikes up a steep, long climb for the famous view we've been hearing about. I can't imagine it being much more beautiful or impressive than anything else we've seen on this coast. But what do I know? I'll report back once I've seen it. This has been Lyon's goal from the very beginning while I skeptically didn't think we'd make it much further than San Fransisco. After two nights of camping in Big Sur we'll cycle back north to Monterey (where I'm writing from right now), and then take a bus to Salinas.

Then on to see Hina in L.A.! Bye, bye bicycles!

To Monterey

From our campsite we can see nearly our entire route for today. We're just going around the bay to Monterey. Here's a picture of where we're going. Time is almost up here in bicycle land.

Santa Cruz

We made it to Santa Cruz! Camping near by, them tomorrow to Monterey.

Finding Our Way to Pigeon Point

Leaving San Mateo was a little rough as we climbed around some steep hills in the hot sun through shade,less suburbia. And as we drew nearer to the bridge that crossed highway 92 towards what we thought looked like a bike path on google maps, we got quite a few looks from people who thought we were stupid, and some annoyed honks too. Though there were racing bikes speeding all around us (hopefully towards this magical bike path?), we were out of the land of loaded down touring bikes, miles and mountains away from highway 1. On the other side of the bridge, we saw a cyclist disappear around a corner and low and behold, he had hopped onto the bike path. Thank God! We left the traffic behind and rolled safely through dry, grassy hills around highway 92 and then up and over highway 280 on an impressive pedestrian bridge. It spit us out on Canada Road, and as we pondered what to do next (google said go right but or instincts said go left), an older English man in full cycling gear rolled up to us and started asking us questions about where we were headed. He gave us detailed directions about how to get over the mountains to the coast in safe cycling-friendly roads and as it turned out, our instincts were correct, we headed left. 'If you have all day,' the man said just before leaving us, ' you'll make it.' Oh we have all day, I thought.

The road that got us over the main ridge was barely wide enough for a car and a bicycle going one direction, and it was sure a slap in the face after 4 days of rest, we went up on that thing for over an hour, but we didn't regret going that way. There were more cyclists than cars and we were shaded by tall redwoods and observed by deer, both babies and bucks along the way. The down hill was dreamy. At points the road was no wider than a bike path, and we didn't pass a single car.

When we finally hit the coast, it was 6:15, and we still had 10 miles to go until Pigeon Point Lighthouse, which doubled as a hostel. I was determined to get there, so we hunkered down and kept riding, finally back on coastal highway 1. The only problem on our minds as the sun sank to our right, casting a red light over the Pacific, was that, despite having called the hostel numerous times, no one had answered. We were racing against time towards a place we were unsure would have a bed for us. Finally, when we saw a sign for the town of Pescadero and, knowing it would be pitch black in 5 minutes, we bailed. All day we had not seen a single campground or inn, and when we got to Pescadero, nothing changed. We decided to get dinner at the local historic tavern to think and see if the locals had any ideas.

The only idea our waitress had was for us to stay at this Swedish-style converted barn which probably cost $200 a night. We thanked her and proceeded to order our cream of green chilli soup, imagining ourselves sneaking onto someone's farmland and pitching our tent for the night.

Delaying the inevitable, we went next door to the bar. Sure enough, a woman i'd run into in the bathroom (we bonded because her hair was a mess from her walk on the beach earlier and mine was a mess from riding my bike 40 miles) asked us a little more about our bike trip. And eventually the question of ' where are you staying tonight' came up. We admitted that we didn't know. For the first time on our trip it was after dark and we didn't know where we were sleeping. Evangeline, as we later learned was her name, called the bartender over and said, ' hey, these kids rode their bikes from Seattle. Where should they sleep tonight?' The bartender, whose hair and mustache were gray, but whose speech pattern was like that of a young surfer dude, scrunched his face in thought. Butano State Park was 5 miles that way, or if we went down stage road we'd probably find empty farm land, but there were really no hotels. When I mentioned that Pigeon Point Lighthouse had been our original destination, his face lit up as if he'd forgotten about that option. 'That place is cool!' He said. 'And they have a hot tub!' We told them we hadn't been able to get through so we didn't know if there was vacancy. ' call them one more time' he directed. Lyon did, and he got through. The message: plenty of beds, be here by 10. Evangeline went to consult with her husband at the other end of the bar and came back and said, 'Okay, I want to help.' It turned out they had a gigantic diesel dodge truck parked outside, so she and her husband Jim, an avid mountain biker from Colorado, drove us to the light house in time for us to grab the hot tub key and soak our bodies in the ocean-side jacuzzi before an early bedtime.

Thank you Jim and Evangeline! I'm so glad this morning I got to wake up in a bed instead of on a farm next to someone's cow.