Without the alarm set, we slept until 7:15 am, so we had 15 minutes to dress in order to be the first at breakfast. We needn’t have bothered as the coffee wasn’t ready and all that was on offer were three pastries in a sealed plastic bag and a jug of orange juice. Back in our room, we finished off the yoghurt and granola from last night while packing up the bikes.
Deborah had promised Feni a phone call, so I pushed the bikes outside pressed the on button on all the flashing and bleeping things we have attached to our handlebars. While outside I got talking to our upstairs neighbours, Demetria and Brittnae. I don’t think either of them were big cyclists, but either they were very good actors or seemed genuinely interested in what we were up to, so much so I will be watching out for a message from them both next year with a link to their cycle tour blog page!
The plan for the day was to cycle about 55 miles to San Simeon. While you wouldn’t describe San Simeon as a town, more a bunch of motels in a random location along the road next to the beach, it was a random location that broke the journey to Monterey down into three days of approximately 50 miles per day, allowing us to take in the beautiful Pacific coastline rather than pushing along it in two and seeing nothing, which would be pointless.
Much of the day was spent cycling on either Highway 1 or the frontage road to Highway 1, jumping off the main highway to pass through the small seaside towns that we came too, only to jump back on Highway 1 when the town appeared in our rearview mirrors. The cycling itself was quite boring, but that allowed us to drift off and watch the spectacular Pacific Coast landscape drift by.
The first main town we came to, at a time that we could almost still get away with calling it second breakfast, was San Luis Obispo. After cycling through the charming town centre we pulled off at a park to finish off the milk we were carrying before it turned into cheese. For a sunny Sunday morning, the park seemed a little short of children enjoying the play area, but as has been a common theme throughout our journey through California it had plenty of homeless people making sure the park was fully utilized.
The next major town we arrived at, this time around lunchtime and in need of a cold drink, was Cayucos. The water we were carrying now tasted like warm swimming pool water, not that either of us has a habit of drinking from swimming pools, so not fulfilling the role of keeping us hydrated as neither of us could stomach too much of it. While the main holiday season was clearly over, the prices for a cold drink were still at high peak levels, so after securing a bank loan Deborah splashed out on a small soft drink from the only service station in town, while Scrooge I stuck with our bottled tepid pool water. We did take time to venture onto the town’s narrow pier, however, as our bikes were not welcome to join us we kept the visit short before heading back to Highway 1 to complete the remaining 20 miles of the day.
Without much distraction apart from the many cyclists on the road enjoying a Sunday workout, most of which waved at us today, some overly enthusiastically, we arrived at our home for the night by late afternoon. After checking out the only grocery store in the area we decided that priority for choosing tonight’s accommodation was breakfast so we went for the Days Inn, which was a whopping $2 more than the cheapest hotel in the area, but as we are coming to close to the end of our adventure with a little cash still in the wallet we decided to splash out.
We checked in and dumped our bikes off in probably the nicest hotel room since the Wigwam Motel in San Bernardino, before heading back to the mini-mart to buy dinner. We had considered splashing out on a restaurant, but after spending an extra $2 on the hotel room we decided another treat on the same day would be a little extravagant, even for us.
After an amazing dinner of cheese and onion microwaved wraps, followed by an orange, we headed over to the motel’s hot tub. 15 minutes of slowly being poached in a large pool of bubbling water was enough, so after a quick gurning and silly suntan stripes competition, which Deborah won without question, we headed back to our room for a relaxing evening in front of the TV to watch Love Actually in an attempt to remind ourselves that it’s the run-up to Christmas back…
… which reminds me, we heard our first Christmas song being played in a 7-Eleven yesterday and saw our first Santa ringing a bell outside a Christmas decoration store. I was sure it was the real Santa, but Deborah wasn’t convinced as she thought he looked too thin, didn’t believe the beard was real and was sure Santa doesn’t smoke.