Friday May 1. 2015

Not a good start leaving the State Park to Santa Barbara, we missed the turn as we left Carpenteria and had to do a U-turn, only added about a kilometer but this should have given us an indication on what the day was going to be like.

The signage on the route today was not very good. We would often get to an intersection and have no idea which way to go. We found this lovely old church because we took another wrong turn.

As we followed the road we spotted this sign, it is quite interesting as the company I worked for had a similar issue in the Township of Tiny.  Public space!!

We eventually found the beach road into Santa Barbara.

We decided to pop up to the REI – oops budget hit! We changed our cot/mat system to a single thicker REI mattress which saved us 3lbs in weight. After we had spent about an hour and a half in REI we decided to see if we could find the hostel in Santa Barbara and stay the night. We eventually found it $85.00 per person in a dorm room – Say What?!!

Forget that, we headed out to El Capitano State Park 32 ks to go.

Then another problem a new name for the book Four Flats – yep I got a flat. We got it fixed and once again headed out to El Capitano.

We had to go through California University Campus, once again no signage and we got misplaced again.

By the time we got to Goleta it was 4:30, we decided to bite the bullet and stay in a motel. It was helpful, as we were able to check the route and send out a few requests for warmshowers over the next few days. Fortunately we do have alternatives if they don’t come back positive. There are state parks along the coast and they are reasonably priced. Of course they have limitations – no power and no internet.

It was one of those days, we cycled 50 ks and didn’t seem to get anywhere. Ah well, the sun was out and it wasn’t windy.