Today is our ten year wedding anniversary. If you guessed we celebrated with a bike ride, you’ve been paying attention.
At breakfast, we told the kids stories about our wedding. Ruth seemed confused by our Fruit-By-The-Foot hand binding, but she was eager for us to buy some to demonstrate.
Once packed up, we rode along where we walked last night. It’s manages to keep surprising me how much faster biking is.
We ran out of town pretty quickly, and started to climb. Even though it was the biggest of the day, it was actually pretty small. We rode through a valley between two sets of hills. Even though the ocean was just on the other side of the western hills, it was a different experience. Hot, brown grass and shrubs, and not enough wind.
As we rode through Harmony, population 18, we saw a sign for a McDonald’s. Anne decided there must be a labor shortage, so she imagined that was a turkey manning the fry machine. Her story didn’t change when we saw the billboard was advertising for the one in Morro Bay.
At Cayucos, we left Highway 1 as it went briefly into divided freeway mode. We rode though downtown, while the highway climbed up. We rejoined at the south end of town, after the highway dropped back to our elevation.
As we approached Morro Bay, the horizon gained interesting features. The rugged hills of the peninsula west of SLO formed the background, with the three smokestacks of the closed power plant and the large Morro Rock formed the foreground.
We cut off the highway again for Morro Bay, and found a playground as a lunch stop. Ruth may or may not have been amused by Anne pretending that she didn’t see the playground and we would be eating in the parking lot. Another seagull watched us excitedly. With the shoo squad distracted by slides, it was able to grab a chunk of sandwich when Anne left it unattended for a few seconds.
After lunch, and a false start finding the right path to take, we continued across the city. It involved quite a few turns and seemingly-gratuitous climbs, but ended up as a lovely ride through Morro Bay State Park.
We cut further inland towards San Luis Obispo. We turned at Turri Road and it got really nice. Golden brown hills flanked our quiet road. It reminded me of riding out northeast of Pleasanton, but the hills had rocky outcroppings, giving them extra character. The road turned for our climb. I stayed behind to take pictures of Anne and Ruth climbing, then tried a little too hard to catch up. During the descent, a bit of a roller coaster, but straight, I saw something white go bouncing into the mowed grass shoulder. I called out that Anne lost her taillight, then stopped to go looking. The bolt holding the mount together worked itself loose, and was lost. We managed to find both halves of the light itself, along with the batteries which went flying out as it hit the pavement. We can find a new bolt at a hardware store, or otherwise improvise.
The signs in SLO claimed to be a bike friendly community, 2007-2019. I’m not sure why they put an expiration date on it. It was pretty bike friendly, with well marked lanes, although there was a bit where we had 50 feet to get across two right turn lanes to stay on the (marked) bike route, and another with a stop sign just before the top of a hill (stopping and starting uphill is No Fun).
South of SLO, we rode over, under, and mostly along our old friend, US 101, but didn’t get to ride on it today. It got super hot super quick. It was a relief when we got back to the coast in Pismo Beach, with the cool breeze to take the edge off.
Sometime between when we left it in Morro Bay and saw it again in Pismo Beach, Highway 1 signage changed from Cabrillo Highway to Pacific Coast Highway and PCH. I guess we’re getting to southern California.
Pismo Beach feels like it. It’s more crowded, and clearly focused on hanging at the beach, with many small shops, a big pier on the big sandy beach, and lifeguard booths. For a town that seems centered on tourists walking from motels to the beach, though, it’s shockingly hostile to walkers. Almost none of the intersections have marked crosswalks,
Anne likes to tell me how much she doesn’t like Pismo Beach. Too crowded, etc, etc. It probably didn’t help that the guy at hotel registration made her cancel her reservation made through a third party (and cancelled it for her when she balked) to do it as a walk in, then suggested that he was doing her a favor by not giving someone else the room in the middle. Tomorrow is a rest day here. Hopefully we can find some fun for everybody.