January 2, 2013
Westport to Mendocino, California: The Fiscal Cliff
Morning light showed us more of our surroundings. We could see lots of tall eucalyptus standing around, the large building we had slept in, the farmhouse - which is across the stream, and a flock of sheep grazing in the front yard.
The woodstove in " our" library got started up. Gosh, wood heat is pleasant! But there was no sitting in the leather chair to enjoy it now, we had to eat and get going.
Over at the farm house the other guests had gathered, and we were surprised to find that a dozen people had been squirrelled somewhere in the buildings. Sally, the owner, had three ladies helping in the kitchen, which sported a wood stove. They put together a wonderful breakfast of banana pancakes, sausage, baked apples, omelet, and fruit. They also seemed easily able to handle the quantities we needed, and stuffed us till we quit.
The ranch features extensive hiking trails, and beach access, (not to mention that library), but we had to go. Our target was a relatively easy one, Mendocino, about 50 km distant. But first we needed to use the farm phone (thanks AT&T - no cell coverage on most of the coast!) to nail down a place to stay. Sally suggested one place that she remembered as being cheap. $160 for the night. Hmmm. Next one, $225. A search on booking.com turned up the cheapest room in town, $92 at the Mendocino Hotel. I booked it, glad to have something that was only three times what we had paid in spots in Oregon.
Out on the highway we were naturally blown away yet again by the surf and the coastline, and the increasing " California" feeling of the trees, particularly the Eucalyptus. These may not be native, but now they are something we much associate with the place, just as palm trees a little further south.
It wasn't long before we came to our first gulch, a spot where a stream enters the ocean. The road descends from the bluff in these areas, down, down to the stream level and a fair bit back inland, then it climbs up and out back to the bluff. In a car its a road shape that makes you wish for a Porsche. On a bike, its a bug because it's curvy with no shoulder and hence dangerous. The pull back up to the bluff is pretty steep too, and slows your progress a lot.
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There we actually only a few of these on the list today, but we know there are a lot more further south. We have to take them into account in figuring just how far we can make it on any given day.
The day was warm and sunny, and I began to have to check myself in coming to believe that it might be like this forever. We took off our heavy gear and had to find places to stash it on the bikes.
Between the farm and Fort Bragg, the road mostly had no shoulder and as traffic picked up it became very dangerous. We took to pulling over when when large or speeding vehicles came up behind, and stared through the windshields at the various morons who were passing too close or too fast.
After Fort Bragg, though, the road flattened and a wide enough shoulder appeared. It was then an easy cruise to Mendocino.
The hotel we had chosen claims to be very historic and high class. And yes, it has lots of oak beams and tables and bars, stained glass, and overstuffed furniture. Normally we love all that. But our attitude was coloured by the price. In fact, we had gotten the room at half price, but looking beyond the Victorian "charm" for a moment, we could see that our room was tiny, that the bed was extremely rickety, that the toilet down the hall did not flush, that there were no amenities at all in the room (though we did later find a water glass in a cupboard). The prices in the dining room were way too high for us, and of course with no microwave in sight we could not even whip up a cup-a-soup out of our packs. So we went off into the town in search of something else, and ended paying the same prices. Oh, not quite so, dessert where we went was $6.50 vs. $9.00 in the hotel!
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What is going on here is that this coast section is a getaway playground for San Francisco, no more than four hours distant by car. The prices and what you don't get for them refelcts that.
The wifi did not reach all the way to our room (naturally) so we went to the dining/sitting area to scope our our next moves down the coast. Taking into account the hills, we phoned places in the towns that were within reach. Prices ranged from $130 to almost $300. Finally an operator clued in to where I was coiming from and mentioned a nearby KOA with cabins. Wow, a bare cabin with nothing, for $63 (and you can rent a sleeping bag for $10). We grabbed it.
Being pretty sure there would be no wifi at the KOA, we then set about plotting our subsequent jump down the coast right now while we still had access to information and cell coverage. But phone calls could only turn up more prices in the $200 range.
It began to dawn on us that while we had budgeted $100 per day total for the credit card part of this tour, and while we had accepted that our total cost would be doubled when we mailed away our camping gear, the sparsely settled and high priced region ahead was going to cost us thousands more than we had. How diifferent this was from what would be in summer, when we could camp at numerous parks, or in the wild!
So here's how it looks from my oak table, under the stained glass lamp, in the heritage hotel: Whereas we have jumped through storms and traffic and hills, we are about to fall over a fiscal cliff! Our new plan is to cycle back to Fort Bragg tomorrow, and check in to the Motel 6 ($55) to think about it. What we will probably think about is not how to mortgage the farm to continue cycling around San Francisco, but whether to return home, or have a crack at a different section of coast. Either way, we would need some form of transport, so assuming the Motel 6 wifi does reach our room for the $55, we will research a mode and a route.
Ironically, just yesterday I sent out a New Years email to lots of friends and acquaintances, inviting them to check out the blog, and playfully ending "see you on the other side of the fiscal cliff". Of course, I meant the U.S. fiscal cliff, not the Mendocino Coast fiscal cliff!
It's all grist for the mill, though, and I will keep the blog going so you can follow how it goes when one tries to escape from a tour in a place that is not big on public transportation. Of all the topics in our blogs, that is certainly one that has so far been neglected!
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 1,467 km (911 miles)
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