Huasna Road

December 18, 2022

It’s sunny today, but very cold again - 29 at sunrise, and not projected to break 50 until noonish. We’re not leaving our apartment any time soon, so I pour another cup of coffee and break out my latest read and settle in for a few more episodes of Birding Without Borders before working on the day’s post:

I haven’t read a dead-tree book in ages, but this was included in the stack of mail Elizabeth handed me when we swapped keys before leaving town. It’s a birthday present, a book she heard about somehow and thought I might enjoy because I like birds.

I wasn’t too sure about this book when I saw it first - the journal of a young Oregonian who set out on a year-long worldwide odyssey to break the record for the number of distinct bird species spotted in a calendar year. I cracked it open a few days ago, thinking I’d browse through it enough to be able to say something meaningful when I thanked Elizabeth for the gift. I quickly became engrossed though, and am finding it one of the most entertaining reads I’ve picked up in awhile. It’s quite a story. The author spent a long time developing an intricate itinerary, stitching together meet-ups with local birding experts around the world that he connected up with by word of mouth through the international elite birding community.

In a typical example, he arrives at an airport in northern Argentina and is met by a brother and sister who have arranged a four day expedition up into the mountains. He’s never met them before, can’t speak their language, and is just going on faith that they’ll actually show up. It’s quite an expedition, supported a mule team carrying their equipment. They wade barefoot through a freezing, raging river, hike for hours through a downpour and frightening electrical storm, sleep under the stars, and then get up in the dark and hike to the nesting site of a pair of breeding eagles where they sit silently for four hours hoping one will return to the nest. And then he’s off to the jungles of Brazil, for another meet-up with another stranger.

And, in the end, mission accomplished - after visiting 41 countries on seven continents and meeting up with hundreds of local birders he spotted 6,042 distinct species in 2015, enough for him to claim the record in this odd challenge - until Arjan Dwarshuis, another birding fanatic from the Netherlands, bested his record just the next year.

Worth a read if you’re interested in birds, travel, or adventure.

Today’s ride

Day by day our enthusiasm for Paso Robles is wearing off. The main thing is that it’s so much colder than we’d expected, and than it looked like it would be from the forecasts of two weeks ago. The first two days were foggy, but even though the next four are projected to be sunny the overnights are so low that it doesn’t warm up to what feels like comfortable riding conditions until around noon.

Partly this is because we’ve had the misfortune to arrive in a cold snap, but also there’s the fact that we’re in a different microclimate, at a higher elevation and on the east side of the coast range. Next time through we’d probably stay in San Luis Obispo again, which is lower elevation and at the moment at least is an important ten degrees warmer.

And, since SLO is only about 25 miles away and we have the Raven at our beck and call, we decide to drive down there for the day’s ride. It’s nearly 55 already when we arrive at just past eleven and start biking east on beautiful Orcutt Road.

Our route today is another out and back. The first half of the distance is eastbound on Orcutt Road, a stretch we’ve ridden a couple of times now. It’s a beautiful, quiet road that we’re happy to see again. Beyond that we’re breaking into new territory, riding up dead-end Huasna Road as it gradually climbs out of the vineyards and agricultural flats into a shady oak forest. It’s a fine ride - scenic, interesting, and today highlighted with a few interesting bird sightings that resonate with the book I’m reading.

I’m nothing like a bird expert, or even a respectable amateur. I might know as many as two hundred species on sight though, and it’s still a thrill to come across what’s for me a seldom-seen species like the loggerhead shrike and some chatty acorn woodpeckers that show up today. This is just the way I like it, having them show up as an unexpected delight.

A part of the day’s plan is to have dinner in SLO at Giuseppe’s, a restaurant we would have enjoyed more when we ate there last December if we hadn’t almost frozen to death because we sat outdoors rather than waiting an hour for indoor seating. Giuseppe doesn’t open its doors until 4:30 though, so we’ve got some time to kill unless we want to stand around waiting at the end of the day. We kill some by loafing our way back to the car, in our own way. I slow down on the way back to the car and stop often for photos, and Rachael repeatedly bikes ahead and then doubles back, bit by bit adding distance to her tally for the day.

We almost stalled too long. It’s 4:31 when we drive past Giuseppe’s, and it’s another five minutes or so before we find a parking spot and make our way back to the door. When we get there, there’s a lineup ten deep waiting to get in - it’s obviously a very popular place. We’re getting anxious about whether we’ll be out back on the patio again as the line slowly inches forward, but we’re in luck and score one of the last indoor tables. The eggplant parmigiana starter, my amatriciana pasta and Rachael’s grilled salmon salad were all excellent, worth the wait. There should have been food photos.