Sunday May 10, 2015

An interesting breakfast at the HI this morning. We watched all the young people trying to work out how to make pancakes on the griddle. There was one young Australian who really had them made to perfection. The young German girls however, thought you had to fill the complete griddle with batter about half an inch thick. I am not sure their pancakes were not cooked all the way through, but they were big about 12 inches long by 8 inches wide.

We were on the road by 9:15 am. Only another 1407 kms to  Vancouver!

It was another cool, overcast morning.

We followed the bike path out of Monterey this morning. It was very quiet on Cannery Row. There were a few joggers and cyclists out on the bike path, but Monterey was still sleeping. We stopped to take photos of the old store and cars and as usual we were asked where we were going by a very nice couple.

We passed Fisherman’s Wharf again and spotted this Harbour Seal with his big sad eyes, lying on the rock.

We carried on along the bike path it took us out towards Sand Castle and Marina – 24 kms of off-road bike path, how good is that. We were going to stop at REI, but decided we didn’t really need anything and we did have a long day ahead of us so we carried on.

As we cycled along we noticed a Mom with her two daughters on their own bikes behind her. If they came to a road crossing she was giving them instructions on proper road procedures. It was great to see her training her girls how to ride a bike and how to ride a bike when encountering traffic situations.

The route today changed from coastal (dunes) to farming.

We passed acres of artichokes and even more strawberry farms. How many strawberries can California produce. Apparently California produces about 75% to 80% of the strawberries for the US market. At one point seeing those red berries hanging from those plants I wanted to just nip into the field and eat a few. However, I was a little concerned about the chemicals so decided not to eat straight from the bush.  However, we did spot a field of lillies, very pretty in the sun.

At about 12:00 the sun started to come out, we switched jackets from heavy wind breakers to our lighter jackets. We stopped at a little café just outside of Aptos for lunch, a nice veggie sandwich for me and a veggie burger for Ralf.

By the time we got to our warmshowers hosts house the sun was out and it was quite warm.

We have mentioned throughout this blog how nice people are, around the world. As we were heading up one hill towards the end of our ride, three roadies came alongside and started chatting to us. They asked us where we were going, etc and as usual were stunned at our answers of cycling around the world, or at least part of it. We could hear them commenting to each other as they rode away. Then two of them turned around and came back to us. \”Where are you staying tonight\”? We told them we had a warmshowers host in Aptos. “So you have everything covered because we both have spare rooms you could stay with us if you need to”. Random acts of kindness make our day and have made our trip.

Barton, our warmshowers host, had everything ready for us when we arrived. Snacks, beer and a good shower. We did our laundry and chatted for a while. Barton was very happy to let us plan our route, update the blog and generally have a relaxing afternoon. As we were looking at our route and the weather for tomorrow Barton commented on the wind in this area. With a smile he told me to check the wind direction further up the coast as there may be head winds.

We talked about the Californian Redwoods that we had seen, and he showed us how they start their life.  The cone is small, from tiny seeds, might redwoods grow.

We had a wonderful dinner, roast beef, jacket (baked) potatoes and veges mmmm lovely. A couple of glasses of red wine for Ralf and a beer for me. People are so kind.  Sometimes you meet people and immediately feel comfortable with them – Barton is one of those people.