We were both still a little sleepy when the 5am alarm went off, even though we both slept well for over 10 hours. It was still pitch black when we rolled out of our tent. With the homeless chap that we had spoken to last night snoring in his tent just a few metres away, we tried to be as quiet as we could packing away, but as the snoring stopped quite abruptly at the same time I clanked a few tent pegs together I’ll assume we failed miserably.
While I am sure it didn’t rain last night the tent was very wet, as were most things that dew has a tendency to cling to, so I am concluding it was dew rather than the rain that resulted in adding a kilogram or so of water to my rear rack bag.
We didn’t have anything left to eat following last nights feast, so breakfast didn’t take very long. As we pushed our bikes up through the campground to the main road the sun peeped above the horizon. We then headed back down the two miles of the road that was now all too familiar while an unexpected amount of traffic hammered by.
Today’s plan was to cycle to Monterey and find a cheap motel when we arrived, although with a 60-mile route with over 1,500 metres (5000 ft) of climbing into a strong headwind there was a good chance that things may not go according to plan.
There isn’t a great deal to write about today. While the scenery around us remained spectacular throughout, it was a case of turning the pedals, usually in one of the bottom three gears to get up the hill, then making the most of the descent to recover, before turning the pedals again in order to get up the next hill, occasionally stopping for a saddle break and to overdose on jelly sweets. I’ll leave the photos to do the talking.
Dropping back down to sea level and passing through a wooded section of Big Sur gave us a welcome change of scenery and a break from the headwind, but when we emerged from the other side the wind had notched it up a gear or two.
With only 8 miles to Monterey, we arrived at Carmel Highlands, the spot that we had calculated would make 3,000 miles since leaving Chicago. Just as we were about to take the photo and head off again a young chap pulled up on his Surly Long Haul Trucker (bike) to say hello. Dillon was also cycling south to north, the only other nutter to do it in this direction when we all know the prevailing winds would make the north to south route the sensible alternative. Dillion explained he had previously cycled the northern California length of the Pacific Coast Highway, so this was him finishing it off. We spoke for probably a little too long, with all of us still having an 8 mile battle against the wind to do as well as finding somewhere to sleep.
We were just about to follow Dillon, who was already almost out of sight down the road when we remembered why we had stopped in the first place… to take a photo at our 3,000-mile mark.
Photo taken and a possible place to rest our heads for the night chosen, we headed towards the part of town with the cheap hotels. As we approached the Bayside Motel, the air that had been feeling rather damp for the past few hours started to gently dump its load, the first rain that we have experienced since Chicago.
One good thing about the cheap hotel part of any town is that it is also usually where all of the cheap restaurants are, so after dumping our bikes in the $47 a night room we headed out to find an evening feast. A mile walk and five menus later we found ourselves in Dollar Tree, a cheap supermarket in order to find something veggie. By the time we had filled two shopping bags with veggie goodies the rain was falling a little less gently, so it was a damp walk back to our hotel room.
We have now spent the night eating and chilling, hoping that the rain and wind are gone by the morning so that we can enjoy our cycle up to Santa Cruz tomorrow.