Date: June 30, 2015

So I accidentally miscalculated how far we had to go this day because I skipped a map, and thus we had to crank out 80 miles.

The night was filled with marauders from raccoons to skunks (both of which walked up to sniff us under our tarp). In the morning my towel was covered with dirty paws as can be seen in the photo above.

Knowing we had 80 miles, we pushed to get 40 in to Monterey by lunch. Basically, we cruised through the industrial agricultural coast section of California, riding through pungent fields of ripening strawberries, huge bitter-air fields of cabbage, and got sprayed on continually by industrial sprinklers which we prayed were not filled with some herbicide or fertilizer. The land was flat and made for good sailing.

All morning we knew Janna’s bike was going to need the wheels trued and the axel fixed due to her accident the day before. Plus, my front wheel had developed severe weight bearing problems ever since the Lost Coast. Luckily we found an REI en route where the bike crews quickly fixed up all the problems in a few hours and got us back out there.

Crossing the hills out of Monterey, we descended into cream thick fog that blocked out heat and light. To sweeten the deal, Highway 1 lost its shoulder and developed huge cliffs with drop offs while cars streamed past with summer tourists flying. We kept it slow and careful with all lights blaring as we ascended the cliffs and entered the sea otter country of Big Sur. Views were limited to say the least. However, approaching Bixby Bridge, the fog abated and we had awesome views of that classic icon. We crossed the bridge and exhausted, around 8 pm, finally rolled into Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park.

At the hiker/biker sites, we met a packed crew heading north to make it to San Fran for the 4th. Among them was this old veteran who had been living on the road over 16 years and was about to hit his 100,000 mile. I want to be that guy some day.