To Paso Robles

December 13, 2022 to December 15, 2022

A drive of a thousand miles in three days isn’t premium content for a cycling blog, so let’s batch them all up in one post and put them in the rear view mirror.

Monday: Eureka

It’s not five yet but we realize we’re both awake so we might as well get up and get this show on the road. We’ve spent the last two days prepping for this moment, sorting out what’s staying from what’s going and stuffing the left-behinds into storage. An hour and a half later the Raven is stuffed to the gills (oh, wait - birds don’t have gills), we’ve tidied up the apartment and taken out the trash, and we’re ready to roll.

A few last minute tasks though before ignition. It dipped to freezing last night and I have to scrape a thin layer of frost off the windows. And over the last nine months we’ve forgotten the nuances of how to operate the car and it takes a few minutes with the manual to remind us how to operate the rear defroster so I can see to drive.

It’s dark of course when we merge onto the freeway, and startling to see how dense the traffic is already at 6:30. For the next hour we enjoy reminiscing about all those wonderful mornings like this when we’d be on the road driving to our jobs in Salem. By the time we’re that far down the road the sky is lightening and a thin layer of fog hovers over the Willamette Valley. It’s really quite beautiful, and a perfect day for a long drive.

And it is long - 7-1/2 hours is the estimate for the drive to Eureka, and it will be longer than that when we finally arrive. Eureka was a last-minute decision. We had booked a room in Dunsmuir on I-5 for the first night, until I had second thoughts about driving over the Siskiyou Summit at this time of year and decided it would be safer to cut over through Cave Junction to the coast and stay at a lower elevation.

For the most part the miles go fast. The Raven is so much easier to drive than Old Paint was, I feel fresh, we’re excited to be going south, and it’s a delight to spin through the CDs we haven’t heard in so long. We start off with Bud Shank’s Sunshine Express (thanks again, Frank!) because it’s so appropriate, and then move on to Laura Nyro, Tracey Grammar, Cyrille Aimee, John Gorka, Getz/Gilberto.

There’s not much drama to the day, other than some anxiety when Google tells us that Highway 199 is closed. We’re too far south now to turn back and cross over to Reedsport, so if we can’t drive 199 we’re staying on the freeway after all. I pull off and bring up the road reports and see there’s no indication that the highway is closed so we continue on. Eventually we’ll find that Google is right and really 199 is closed - but just at two miles from its end just north of Crescent City, at a point where we can cut over to 197 instead. Whew!

Because every day should have at least one photo, I pull off for a view down the coastline at an overlook north of Klamath. It’s gorgeous. It feels like we’re in the south already.

We make it to Eureka at around four, when it’s still light out. Two hours later we drive a few miles back to old town for a good steelhead meal at Jack’s Seafood, one of the few places in town open on Tuesday night unless we want to try our luck with Applebee’s, Carl’s Jr., or a pizza place; which we don’t.

One down.

Tuesday: Half Moon Bay

By design, today and tomorrow are both shorter than yesterday. I wanted to get the longest stretch out of the way first, and today is only 5-1/2 hours if you don’t count the half hour or so added for the congestion and detours we’ll encounter when we reach the Bay Area.

There’s breakfast of a sort available at the Comfort Inn we’re staying at, but I turn up my nose at it when I look over the choices and decide I’d rather just have a cup of weak coffee and drive for a few hours. Rachael thinks it looks fine though and loads up a plate to stab at while we start driving south.

Surprisingly perhaps, I really enjoy driving under the right conditions; and they’re definitely right this morning, as they were toward the end of the day yesterday as we drove through the redwoods and along the coast south of Crescent City. One of the wonderful and frustrating things about driving through spectacular country like this the procession of striking scenes that flash by quickly enough to catch your eye and make you gasp in wonder; and then they’re gone. Today there’s that bull elk standing erect just off the shoulder to the left, his huge rack straight up above him; and then not long after there’s a lone deer on the right, standing on a knoll backlit and silouhetted in the fog; and then a massive herd of maybe a few hundred elk off in a meadow; and mile after mile of immense redwoods crowding the edge of the narrow two lane highway, and mile after mile of the shimmering ocean with surf breaking against the shoreline. It’s all quite a rush, with us feeling elated and exhilarated to be down here again.

In Leggett we stop for gas at Patriot Gas and enjoy a brief encounter with the attendant there - a grizzled old guy who looks like he must be even older than me. It feels like a stop at a gas station from thirty years ago. Even though California is a self-serve state he pumps the gas because his pumps are so old they’ve never been upgraded with self-serve functionality. When we’re done he states how many gallons we purchased - 10.8, he says - and then we go inside and he pulls out his paper ledger to record the purchase with a pencil. How much gas was it, he asks me, and I remind him. He gets out a calculator, does the math, records the sale, and then pulls out his iPad so he can accept the payment with my credit card. All the while I’m alternately petting and pushing down his overly friendly dog, a beagle-like stray he took in a few years ago.

We drive off with a mix of feelings - it was a humanizing encounter of the kind that has always drawn me to traveling through backwaters like Leggett, a place that looks like it’s working it’s way toward a ghost town designation. On the other hand, you just know this is a man whose politics are diametrically opposed to ours and if they were exposed the encounter would have felt quite different. I so want us to get back to a place where we aren’t so bitterly divided and can just interact as fellow humans again.

But back to the business at hand. I’m hungry by now, and Rachael browses for the nearest cafe - and finds a good one, Cafe 77 in Willets. Disappointingly they don’t offer the Full English, but I enjoy a terrific Irish skillet and Rachael has an unusual second breakfast of chicken breast and grilled potatoes.

An Irish skillet: corned beef, potatoes, onions, scrambled eggs. Just my kind of breakfast.

We make it into Half Moon Bay at three. Rachael’s anxious to walk across the hall to the exercise room but we have a chore to get behind us first - we both need to take a Covid test. I haven’t revealed it here before, but we both contracted Covid somewhere over the last two weeks. I discovered this when I was tested at my doctor’s appointment soon after we returned to Portland. It was a relief when I tested negative, and so we proceeded with our plans for dinner with Elizabeth, Vance, and Laurie and our meet-up with the Grumbys.

Then, a full three days after the test, Kaiser reached out to let me know that they’d reconsidered and decided the results were positive after all. How does that even happen? We cancelled plans to drive up to Seattle to visit my father and to visit friends on the drive south and spent the rest of our stay in Portland cloistered in our apartment waiting for improvements.

Improvements came soon enough, and by the time we’re ready to drive south we both tested negative. I’ve still got a residual cough that’s improving each day, but we both otherwise feel back to normal after infections that felt pretty much like catching a cold.

But now we’re testing again just a few days later. We spend an anxious fifteen minutes waiting for our test results, give a cheer when we both pass, and then Rachael excitedly dashes across the hall for her date in the workout room while I don’t.

So why are we testing again? Because it’s date night! We have a conditional date with fellow CycleBlazer Kathleen Jones and her partner BJ at a nearby Italian restaurant. If we passed, the date is on; otherwise we’ll say our regrets and try to stop in on the way north.

It’s a delightful evening, if a bit chilly one sitting in the covered outdoor area bracketed by space heaters. We’ve never met Kathleen and BJ in person before, though we’ve corresponded with Kathleen for probably five years through the cycling blogs. It’s wonderful to finally meet up and to listen with envy as they rave about their idyllic life in their new home in HMB. I’m pretty sure we’ll be back here ourselves for another visit, and maybe stay around for a few days of local rides if it warms up enough.

How great! One last CycleBlaze meetup to close out the year.

Thursday: Paso Robles

Today’s drive is the shortest of the three - barely four hours if we take the most direct route, which we don’t. Rachael is going mad from her lack of exercise ever since leaving Vence and insists that we have to stop somewhere so she can get out for a walk. We consult the map and decide that the best spot looks to be Point Lobos, the same state park we stopped at last winter on the drive down to San Luis Obispo. We remember it as an outstanding place, one we’re more than happy to revisit.

Point Lobos is about a two hour drive south, just past Monterey. We’re there by eleven, even with a couple of stops along the way to admire the views. It’s a fantastic day - sunny, no wind, and almost warm. It would be a great day to be out on the bike, but we’ll have to wait another day for that.

At Pomonio State Beach. Are we missing chilly, grey Portland yet? Not just yet, no.

As I said, we stopped at Point Lobos last December. It’s every bit as brilliant as we remembered it, and even better on this warm, sunny day. We’re here for about three hours, splitting up soon after we arrive so that Rachael can walk at her own brisk pace while I stop for everything interesting I find until my camera finally dies because I forgot to recharge its battery. Really an exceptional spot with astonishing diversity. I’d be happy to stop in hear every year, really.

Monterey cypress, the iconic tree of the peninsula.

When I was done stopping over to take shots of that interesting formation above, I turned around and saw this gull five feet behind me, calmly checking me out.

A Say’s phoebe. Nice to get reacquainted with the home birds.

Walking through a Monterey pine forest. The small park is remarkable for its diversity.

We arrive in Paso Robles about four and are immediately enthusiastic about the apartment we’re staying at for the next seven nights. And we’re hyper-enthusiastic to be here, with our health back and a string of sunny days in the future. Let the biking begin!

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Andrea BrownSo glad you’re on the mend. We are being cautious here in Thailand but most foreign tourists are foregoing masking so it may be hard to avoid covid completely. Open-air restaurants and masked Thais are making it much safer though.
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2 years ago

Rachael AndersonTo Andrea BrownIt’s good to hear from you! I hope you are enjoying Thailand.
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2 years ago

Kathleen JonesForgot to tell you that Point Lobos belongs to BJ. That’s her special place. She’s happy to share it with others though.
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Kathleen JonesI was already thinking BJ has excellent taste. Here’s another data point to confirm it.
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2 years ago