Day 15: Sunday Sunny Sunday
Today was filled with beauty. Beautiful beaches, bridges, light houses, normal houses, and fields. The sky cleared, the wind blew from the north, and a big smile was put on my face.
The day started with rain though :(, but Austen and I were still laughing about some of the conversations we had last night. (I forgot to mention this, but one guys name we met was Vishnu Vishnu. That’s typed twice on purpose. What a name. He grew up in Berkeley, which explains the name a bit :). We biked into Fort Bragg and got dinner at an awesome diner, the Egghead. It was themed after the wizard of oz, and had amazing food. After breakfast Austen and I said our goodbyes, and parted ways. Austen was headed along the coast, and I had some business that needed to get taken care of while I still had service!
In a moment of refection, I think one thing this trip has taught me is I tend to be better at meeting new people/making new friends then I previously thought. I think I previously thought that because I never really had the need/felt the desire to make new friends. But, put on the road by myself, found it very easy and natural to talk with new people, and make new friends. I’ll be curious how that plays out when I’m back in SF.
After I got all my internet requirements out of the way, I headed to church in Fort Bragg. Turns out, the priest was a Carmelite (great) so mass was about 1.25 hours, but it was a nice mass with a full church.
After mass I started my route down highway 1. The sun came out, the sky cleared, and it’s hard to describe how beautiful it was. I’ll try to show with pictures.
A few special notes today. I stopped at the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse and ended talking with the volunteer host for what felt like an hour. (More like he talked to me, but it was pretty interesting.) The most interesting thing to me was how the light of the lighthouse moved before electricity. It was wound like a grandfather clock, and had to be rewound every 1.75 hours throughout the night. That requires a lot of waking up, yikes.
The food today was also delicious (minus dinner which was a bit disappointing.) Eggheads, as mentioned, had an awesome breakfast, and then it seems all the towns along the way have a cute little general store that have great sandwiches. I stopped at one of those stores, and a cafe/bakery to round out my 4 meals a day.
(At the bakery I got an excellent slice of cheesecake. It was expensive, but so so good.)
Dinner was at Pier Chowder House and Tap room. The view was gorgeous! (Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures) But the food was meh. Oh well, I’ll get something good tomorrow!
Unfortunately, many of California’s state parks are not yet opened. I was planning at staying at Manchester Beach Campground tonight, but it was closed. My back up plan was some BLM land near the dinner spot, but they have marked that BLM land as no camping, and have built a big fence that would be tricky to get a bike through.
So, I ended up at a private campground, ABC (Anchor Bay Campground.) Being Anchor Bay, a nice guy named Jerry pointed out I could setup on the grass and just pay $10 instead of $42 for a full site. Camping is a rip off. Much happier after being told that, I setup my tent and quickly hopped into bed. It was a short day, but because of the late start, a long one. I’m exhausted and ready for bed.
I’m loving the flower lined roads though!! Goodnight!