August 28, 2017
Day 56 Bodega Dunes: A Day of Decisions
We slept in, knowing that our only ride for this day would be a short 1 ½ miles into the town of Bodega Dunes where we planned on finding a coffee shop with wifi to spend the day working and planning. We needed to make a decision about when to stop and what to do after we stop.
We rode down the winding road into town (more hilly switchbacks, but I’m finally getting the hang of them) we came upon a pretty swishy restaurant on the dock. Outside, fish were being offloaded from barges, so there was a compliment of sea lions barking for the leftovers. After watching this for a bit, we went in and had a nice but way overpriced breakfast. Luckily, there was an open area nearby where a café would open later on. They had tables, plug-ins and wifi, so after we ate we went over and set up shop.
As we worked on the journal, the English couple, Josh and Caroline, who were at the campsite with us last night, stopped by for coffee before they headed out for the day. Their plan was to do a “short” day – I think 40 miles, so they had time to have a leisurely coffee and chat with us. How very different our touring style is from most of the young people we have met on this trip! We enjoyed our visit, learning more about how Josh managed to get sponsored for his travels – we have to look into that! Anyone know of a company who wants to promote their product to those retired cyclists? An no, not Depends!!!
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Josh and Caroline eventually had to leave for the day and we were left with work and decisions. We got some coffee from the now open café and talked about the options. We wanted to find a little town in CA to stay in, but the prices near the water are just too much for us, so we started looking at other options. Where do other Canadian Snowbirds go for the winter? Arizona? Nope, says Jim, no sports team there I want to follow and we don’t really know enough about the place. How about Palm Desert? I know a lot of Canadians hang out there. Still another place we don’t know enough about. We needed somewhere that we knew a little about. Somewhere we could still ride our bikes around for the next few months. Somewhere that had something to draw us to it. Hmmmm…. What about Austin? Texas? Yes, Annie and Matt live in Waco, just 3 hours away, so we could bus up and see them. She’s always told us what a cool city Austin is, and I hear they have a great bike system there. The idea took hold and we checked prices – doable for sure. We looked for flights – yep, we could fly from San Fran to Austin and use points. We thought about it some more as we worked on videos for the journal. It felt right, and we were excited about the prospect of seeing Annie and Matt for a little longer. Also, our youngest daughter, Emily was coming down in October with her husband Ben and our two grandsons, Taylor and Liam, so that would be a bonus! Hurray! Decision made! We would still ride down to Monterey so that we could see the aquarium there, then ride back up and fly from San Francisco to Austin to spend the rest of the time until heading back up to Vancouver Island in December.
Having made our momentous decision, a weight was lifted and we both felt much more relaxed. We realized that stopping the tour early was the right decision for us – we didn’t want to ruin our first experience of touring long term by pushing it past what we felt comfortable with, and the thought of riding the rest of the way down and then entering a foreign country where language was going to be a barrier just was not appealing at all. We love Mexico and really want to tour there, but we want to do it when we have the energy to really appreciate the experience.
So, day done, we hauled ourselves back up the winding hills. We stopped at a little grocery store for a few dinner items, then hit a little café for afternoon lattes. Here, as everywhere in this town, there were decorations of blackbirds and references to the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds”. I’m guessing they must have filmed the movie here – it sure has a long shelf life in this town!
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On our way back, we made one small detour, to visit a shrine we had seen briefly on our way in to town. It was a tower of bells, dedicated to a young boy from this town who had died in Italy, several years ago. His parents donated his organs to children over there, and the people of the town where this happened, donated all these bells to be used to remember him. What a sweet, sad story, but what amazing people to have had the courage to give such a gift to others at the worst time of their lives.
We put our things away at the camp site and headed off to find the dunes at Bodega Dunes. It didn't seem right that we should stay here for 2 days and not even see the water. A short ride on a nice path let us down to the water where we enjoyed watching the waves until it was time to head back and turn in the for night.
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