Day 2: And then there were 3

Sunday started on a sad note. One of our intrepid bike tour members had to go back to SF to her students. Despite multiple options provided to Darragh from Brittany for substitute teachers (found on Craigslist of course), Darragh decided it best that she teach rather than “Joe from Tennessee.”

Lindsey gracefully drove down to Half Moon Bay with her mom who is visiting to pick Darragh up! They met up with us at a bakery in Halfmoon Bay, and we enjoyed a lovely (and very filling) meal of French toast, breakfast burritos, ham/cheese, and (of course) many baked goods.

After breakfast we said our goodbyes, helped pack Darragh in the car, and started on our way to Santa Cruz.

“So Mark, how far are we going today?” asked Brittany. Good question, I did not know the answer, and Brittany pointed out that neither did she. It turned out, we’d do around 63 miles, which makes this one of our longest days, which we started at noon! Oops.

(At this point I fell asleep writing this blog post, and apparently have about a days memory, so details get sparse)

Our first stop of the day was at a farm stand! You could say it was a fruitful stop, as we got strawberries and peaches and plums! We’ll stopped there, we saw Joey riding by on his motorcycle!! Highlight of the day!

We got lunch in Pescadero along the way, and picked up some excellent artichoke bread. In Pescadero we ran into some of the art that Joey used for his painting to Lindsey! We bikes out to the beach, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch of bread and sandwiches on the beach.

By this point I finally realized that we actually had a long day ahead of us, so we finished up lunch and started our bike to Santa Cruz.

The bike from Pescadero to Santa Cruz was, of course, gorgeous. Along the way we say about 100 kiteboarders and wind surfers at one beach! We stopped mesmerized by the sails and kites in the air. The wind was howling (we had a 20 mph tail wind almost all day) and the kiteboarders and windsurfers were excellent. We learned later that had we been two hours earlier, there was also a plane doing flips, twists, and other stunts above them!!

We stopped quickly in Davenport for ice cream (rule #3 of the safety is sexy guidelines: always stop for ice cream.) There we were able to get a few more percentages of charge on our phone (remember your ABCs, always be charging), and get a nice rest before coasting into Santa Cruz.

In Santa Cruz we went to natural bridges state park! Which is more aptly names natural bridge state park, as we only saw one, but it was a beautiful beach! We saw some young surfers surfing “the side wave.” The beach there is angled like a bathtub. Two rock walls narrowing to a beach. On the far wall. A wave would form that comes in at a 45 degree angle to the main wave hitting the beach. The surfers would ride the “side wave” and then usually got dumped and put through the washing machine when they collided with the main wave. But it was great to watch.

We went to dinner at a restaurant which name escapes me. It was a Mexican place (so far this trip has been a tour of Mexican restaurants), and the food was alright. The margaritas were good though!! And they were nice to allow us to wheel our bikes inside!

We made it to New Brighton Beach State Park just passed sundown. As we rolled into the biker site, we heard the strum of the Ukulele. It was Brett and David! Who we met from half moon bay! They were excited to see us! And chatted about there day with us. Brett taught Brittany some cords on the Ukulele! And we all sat around the fire and sang songs. All in all a fantastic day!