Today is Anne’s birthday. We celebrated as we celebrate all special occasions, with a bike ride.

The morning saw us circling around Santa Cruz on city streets. Mostly it has pretty good bike lanes (possibly related to why it was our route), although some were really well marked ways to get yourself doored.

We passed through Watsonville and its vast field of strawberries. Many were being picked, with pallets of strawberry packages either filled or ready to be. The wind had picked up by now, and at times the fruity smell was intense. As we wound our way around the fields, it would shift from an awesome headwind, to a slow-inducing headwind, to a hard to control crosswind.

We got onto Highway 1 for a brief stretch around Moss Landing. Traffic was such that we could go faster than the cars, at least until we started climbing. Sometimes it’s good to be a bike.

We stopped for lunch at Moss Landing State Beach, right across from where Anne and I went kayaking many moons ago, before Ruth was born, when some of Anne’s high school friends were visiting. There was a wedding going on, so the parking lot was full. We didn’t see any picnic tables, so we laid out the blankets behind the information signs. We saw lots of otters doing their backfloat thing.

I gave Anne her on-the-road birthday present: a bag of banana chips. We don’t want to carry unnecessary things, which really limits the options for gifts. A week ago, she was complaining about not always getting bananas. Then yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to the grocery store without her, so I seized the moment. There aren’t a lot of places to hide things, so I’m thrilled I was able to pull off the surprise. I also let her have my cookie.

Back on the road, we pretty quickly got onto the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail. At first, I wasn’t too sure about it. It seemed to run parallel to a perfectly good street, only without the benefit of the street’s grading, so lots of small ups and downs. Then we got to a path through Fort Ord, and it was more interesting. Fort Ord is an army base that closed in 1994, and has since become an assortment of park/monument/recreation entities. As we rode through, we looked at a variety of abandoned buildings, rail lines, shooting ranges, all on a pretty nice trail.

Then it was back to the Coastal Trail, where dunes were working to reclaim land and people were parasailing. When we stopped to take some pictures, a guy picking up litter asked us to take one of him with his choice find: a Bernie Sanders sign.

As we finished up the trail, passing through a clogged parking lot, I realized that the elevation profile showed one more climb up the hotel. We took to the streets, and got one final workout. When we were moving into the room, I discovered the metal part of a clothespin embedded in one of the trailer wheels. Now, several hours later, it’s still holding air. Schwalbe Marathon Plus earns more of my love.

We usually leave on a light in the bathroom or something as a night light. This room has all the lights on motion sensors. The solution? Leave the door open to the microwave.