Much has happened since our last entry! We continued south from Half Moon Bay on the 1. Biking through Santa Cruz was exciting, but easy because a nice bike tourist from the Netherlands was heading north & gave us his map of Santa Cruz. After Santa Cruz, things got a bit trickier. Highway 1 turns into a freeway, i.e. unbikable territory. The Pacific Coast Bike Route weaves through back roads, and for some reason, people like to steal the signs for the route, i.e. the ones that tell you which way to go. So, there were numerous times when we would get to the end of a trail or road and say, "NOW where do we go?" But then, every time, someone would pop up out of nowhere and give us directions. It was pretty miraculous! So we made it through Monterrey and Carmel by the sea (ick!), and headed back down the 1. There was a night where we were in Garrapata State Park, and the sun was setting and the nearest campsite was 20 miles away. So we had to do some covert camping on the side of the road. Got discovered the next morning by a park ranger! At first we were pretty worried when we saw him coming towards us, but he ended up being the sweetest guy! We have the same birthday (feb 17), but he was born 30 years before me, exactly, and he has a twin brother that lives in Portland! Because we were bike tourists he didn't write us a ticket, we just hung out and chatted. We met other bike tourists heading south, we biked up and down a lot, we saw beautiful things along the ocean, and we were glad when we got to Cambria and could head inland. Highway 1 is very exhausting with all the mountains, so we were starting to fantasize about flat land. We biked over Highway 46 (the 10 mile uphill ride led to a lovely view of the coastal mountains meeting the sea), and stayed that night in the church of my childhood (St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Thank you Father Matt!) in Atascadero. The next morning we headed our to my parents house 5 miles east of Santa Margarita; I've always wanted to bike out there. Stayed there for a week and a half. Mom gave us a ride to Mojave in exchange for a couple more days of visiting, which was fine by us. Now we are biking through the Mojave Desert, and soon we will be in Joshua Tree, and then Quartzite, AZ for a couple of months. We are looking forward to staying in one place for a while...
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