Rest of Day 5/ Day 6 (June 5th + 6th)

I’ve been waking up with Scarlett Johansson lips.

Now, you might think that’s kind of cool, but really…it’s because my lips are burned, and I don’t look like K Mrdjanov. The burn factor’s been pretty low for the amount of time we’ve been outside, but…sunscreen just won’t stay on these puppies, so for now, in the morning, I’m someone else.

Yesterday, we left Pat and George’s around 12/1 and rode just about 40 miles down the road to the next campground in San Simeon. Here, we ran into a bunch of other cyclists (South bound); not many of which were much for conversation. However, someone who WAS much for conversation was our site-mate, Adam and his two kids, Noah and Sasha.

Noah and Sasha were instantly mesmerized by the bikes. “Hey, wanna ride with us?” “Let’s race!” So we did. Three laps around camp… ending with a “I thought you’d be a lot faster.” Ha. This ushered in talks of Transformers, some kind of Pokémon variation, and this War game I’ve never heard of before. A lot of “uh-huhs”, and then, S’more eating. Easy to fake Transformer conversation with a mouth full of delicious. David talked with Adam; he bikes too, and is a believer. He actually prayed with David before we all went to bed. Pretty cool. Definitely Adam’s family was a bright spot…we’re hoping we’ll run into them again in Monterrey.

We were up and out of camp at 6. The ride out of San Simeon was surreal…dense fog that hid the mountains, then revealed them again. Thick, heavy, wet fog. We stopped not far out of town where you could see tens of Elephant Seals barking and wrestling. It took until 9:30 for the sun to burn through the fog. There aren’t too many towns…or even villages between San Simeon and Big Sur, but we stopped at this tiny side stop called “rugged point”. Oh. Wow. From the point, we saw fog rolling off the mountains and into the water. Though it’s a “gas station”, a resort and restaurant, Rugged Point is considered the entryway to Big Sur. Other “villages” along the way were also ridiculously quaint, and impossible to live in. Really? $5 for a box of granola bars?

We rode 75/80 miles today, and every single pedal-stroke was through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever…ever…. When we get a chance to upload the pictures from today/tomorrow (and figure out how to give a good link), we hope we can share some of the things we saw. Big Sur is an 80 mile stretch, most of which we rode today. Holy. Cow.

On PCH, we heard a waterfall coming down the mountain, and David wanted to stop and check it out. We hopped off our bikes, and to be honest, I was a little skeptical thinking we’d be hiking in our bike-dork shoes for a couple miles, looking at mountain run-off. Buuuut, I was wrong. Back a 1/4 mile off PCH on a strangely marked path was a honesttogoodness waterfall. Worth the walk in the dork-shoes.

We initially planned to take today easy (after the day-of-which-we-will-not-speak), but things were going so well right outside of where we planned to stop today, that we decided to double our miles and make it to Big Sur by tonight. This meant mountains. Lots of mountains. A day of mountains…but… here’s the key…no wind. YAY! So, happily, merrily, we climbed those mountains (although no one said anything about quickly). Today’s stretch was carved into the mountain side. Great views-- very little shoulder for cycling. We made it… and from what we hear we’ve passed the scariest part of the ride between here and SanFran.

Here I insert an astute observation by David… either there are 5 white Mustangs constantly circling back on us, or we saw over 50 WHITE mustangs today, and then many others in various shades. This was a mystery… why so many Mustangs? David’s speculation at the end of the day: rental cars. People not from the west fly out to drive the coast and want to drive…what? A convertible. Or a Mustang. Or a convertible Mustang. This makes sense to me, but maybe there really are just 5 squirrelly, circling white Mustangs out there. That makes sense too.

We rode through Los Padres National Forest today. Their slogan was, “Land of Many Uses”, which I thought ironic because the land is used for…a Forest.

Right outside of Big Sur (the town, not the large 80 mile coastal strip) we ran into a group of stranded German/Swiss cyclists. Busted tire, and the patch wasn’t holding. Dundadaduuuuuuuuuun! David to the rescue! He sprayed some kind of goo into the tire, blew it back up, tested it out, and we were all on our way. What a hero.

After our last grueling climb, we pulled into Big Sur state park, and set our tent up under the redwoods. The showers were magnificently forceful and hot (for only a quarter! OK, fine. I spent two). Unfortunately, David went to make us coffee on the burner, and spilled it all over…him. Ow. Burns of another kind.

We’re camping out in Big Sur for tonight and tomorrow, and plan to hike and take LOTS of pictures… which I hope I can figure out how to share soon.

Thank you all for your prayers… the wind wasn’t a bear today, and we were able to make it way farther than we originally planned.