Day 31
Cold night. In the morning, the dew had frozen on the tent. We were stiff and hardly packed until the sun came over the ridge. Soon, the only trace of us was a patch of depressed grass. We helped eachother lift our bikes over a low barbed wire fence very gingery (a flat at the start of the day would be no fun) and rode away freely.
The terrain continued to open up into a broad plain, the mountains retreating, and the ocean wearing the grasslands into short cliffs with small canyons at every creek.
At a bridge over one such creek, Lluc stopped something in the water. We stopped to see two seals playing (or fighting?) in the lagoon. I knew there was an elephant seal rookery near here, but I couldn't tell from just their heads if they were in fact of the elephant variety.
Another mile down the road and then I knew for sure. The was at least 40 of them piled on the sand, most of them spooning in a big blubbery sleepover, the rest flopping about the beach, almost like weener dogs doing the worm, to spar with eachother like drunk old men. It was great entertainment. The smell was a bit offputting, but the sound was spectacular-- le shimmering a creature at the bar on Tatooine would make.
The elephant seals are also an excellent fishery recovery success story. After whalers in the 1800's nearly brought them to extinction, only a small community survived off of Guadalupe Island in Baja California. When the whaling industry imploded due to cheaper sources of oil, the seals made thier slow recovery. In the 1990's they began to Winter on these beaches again and now the are more than 15,000 in the area.
We stopped in San Simeon to get our bearings at an uncomfortably cheesy resto-bar (lions at the door, fake fountain, karaoke with elvis advertised at the door). Mmmm back in civilization. We didn't stay long. Instead we rode clear to Cayucos with a steady tailwind. As we heard, the Montañas de Oro rose above the sea and the multicolored houses on the hillside stood out against the harsh brown grass. Suddenly it felt as if we were in Mexico.
The town was enjoyable. Clean and simple, all the basic necessities without too much flair. We stopped in the shade and our if the wind by an old windmill. Not long after, we stopped in the marina of Morro Bay and looked out into that big rock, which I learned later is actually volcanic.
Off of the 1, we took farm roads that brought us around Morro Bay itself and up into the high hills of the Los Osos valley. There, the wind was blowing strong, and we cruised, almost keeping up with the cars, over and into the San Luis Obispo valley.
Lluc and I had been discussing where the line was between Northern and Southern California was for skme time. I naivelt thought it was San Francisco, but some folks from the area we met a few nights ago said, if they were to make a line, it would be here in SLO. I could feel it as we came into town... Spanish style architecture, palm trees that didn't look out of place, and something else I can't nail down yet.
We dropped into town and found ourselves at the old mission downtown. A sign at the beginning of town identified it as a "bicycle- friendly community." We gave three cheers to that one, slid right into a bike path, and got ushered through a construction site without waiting a moment. It's nice to feel like a VIP sometimes... We didn't stay long, because I got a call from my cousin, Michael who lives in town. It's been 6 or 7 years since I saw him get married, and now he and his wife, Christina have two boys and a house in town. They treated us to dinner at a shwarma place in town (food fantasies fulfilled) and then took us up to the hill in the neighborhood park. So darn fun to catch up and meet my little relatives.
To be with familiar faces again is a relief. Also, showers and laundry agyer nearly a week is pretty great. I no longer feel like a monster.
We had planned to here from San Fran, but looking at the maps, we realized we're not far from LA, and from there, within a stones throw of Mexico. Wow. We were giddy with a nervous astonishment.
The terrain continued to open up into a broad plain, the mountains retreating, and the ocean wearing the grasslands into short cliffs with small canyons at every creek.
At a bridge over one such creek, Lluc stopped something in the water. We stopped to see two seals playing (or fighting?) in the lagoon. I knew there was an elephant seal rookery near here, but I couldn't tell from just their heads if they were in fact of the elephant variety.
Another mile down the road and then I knew for sure. The was at least 40 of them piled on the sand, most of them spooning in a big blubbery sleepover, the rest flopping about the beach, almost like weener dogs doing the worm, to spar with eachother like drunk old men. It was great entertainment. The smell was a bit offputting, but the sound was spectacular-- le shimmering a creature at the bar on Tatooine would make.
The elephant seals are also an excellent fishery recovery success story. After whalers in the 1800's nearly brought them to extinction, only a small community survived off of Guadalupe Island in Baja California. When the whaling industry imploded due to cheaper sources of oil, the seals made thier slow recovery. In the 1990's they began to Winter on these beaches again and now the are more than 15,000 in the area.
We stopped in San Simeon to get our bearings at an uncomfortably cheesy resto-bar (lions at the door, fake fountain, karaoke with elvis advertised at the door). Mmmm back in civilization. We didn't stay long. Instead we rode clear to Cayucos with a steady tailwind. As we heard, the Montañas de Oro rose above the sea and the multicolored houses on the hillside stood out against the harsh brown grass. Suddenly it felt as if we were in Mexico.
The town was enjoyable. Clean and simple, all the basic necessities without too much flair. We stopped in the shade and our if the wind by an old windmill. Not long after, we stopped in the marina of Morro Bay and looked out into that big rock, which I learned later is actually volcanic.
Off of the 1, we took farm roads that brought us around Morro Bay itself and up into the high hills of the Los Osos valley. There, the wind was blowing strong, and we cruised, almost keeping up with the cars, over and into the San Luis Obispo valley.
Lluc and I had been discussing where the line was between Northern and Southern California was for skme time. I naivelt thought it was San Francisco, but some folks from the area we met a few nights ago said, if they were to make a line, it would be here in SLO. I could feel it as we came into town... Spanish style architecture, palm trees that didn't look out of place, and something else I can't nail down yet.
We dropped into town and found ourselves at the old mission downtown. A sign at the beginning of town identified it as a "bicycle- friendly community." We gave three cheers to that one, slid right into a bike path, and got ushered through a construction site without waiting a moment. It's nice to feel like a VIP sometimes... We didn't stay long, because I got a call from my cousin, Michael who lives in town. It's been 6 or 7 years since I saw him get married, and now he and his wife, Christina have two boys and a house in town. They treated us to dinner at a shwarma place in town (food fantasies fulfilled) and then took us up to the hill in the neighborhood park. So darn fun to catch up and meet my little relatives.
To be with familiar faces again is a relief. Also, showers and laundry agyer nearly a week is pretty great. I no longer feel like a monster.
We had planned to here from San Fran, but looking at the maps, we realized we're not far from LA, and from there, within a stones throw of Mexico. Wow. We were giddy with a nervous astonishment.
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