Day 45 - Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz

Day 45 (June 25) - Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz

When I wake up, I decide again that Half Moon Bay State Beach is an excellent place to camp

I started out and made breakfast fairly quickly and was all ready to cruise out of the campground relatively early, but then I allowed my better nature to get the best of me and helped out a few people instead of just getting ready and taking off.

First, there were a pair of Austrian bike tourists - they rolled up and asked the procedures for getting a campsite, so I explained to them about Hiker/Biker sites and asked where they were going and what maps they were using.  When they told me that they were headed down to San Diego and then across to Florida, and that they were operating off of normal roadmaps, I decided that I had to give them one of the photocopies of the maps that I was carrying (now I know why I was carrying two photocopies) - as they would certainly be severely stuck at some point otherwise.  They then asked me about my trip and the bike.  It was a fun forty five minutes.

Then, just as I was about to head out, a mom and her two daughters roll down the bike path next to my campsite, and one of the girls says: "mom, my tires are flat ..." so when mom asks if I can help, I say sure - switch my pump from presta to schrader and pump up her tires.

So I finally roll out later than expected and head out towards Santa Cruz.  I passed by "historic" Pescadero (why does every town need to claim to be historic?)

"Historic" Pescadero: that way

Then I came upon this rather surreal scene: after all, how often do you see a lighthouse in the middle of a field?

Pigeon Point lighthouse - from an interesting perspective

It looked like they were watering the lighthouse.

Coming over a rise, I saw what I first thought were parasailers, but turned out to be kite surfers:

Sails in the sky

Eventually, I make it down to Daveport, where I stopped for a bit to get a cookie, a glass of ice water and then a Red Bull for the final push to Santa Cruz.

When I finally get to Santa Cruz, I really don't recognize the place anymore.  I head over to Saturn cafe to get some grub and see if anyone will come and hang out.  Irene and her sons show up, and we have some time to hang out.  Irene also offered a place to stay, but she didn't think that my bike would fit in her Fit.  After I assured her that it would, she took the boys to one of the neighbors' houses while she came back and picked up me and the bike for a ride back to her place in Scotts Valley.

Irene pointed me in the direction of a shower and made up a bed for me.  Ahhh, real pillows.  That is what I need to figure out better.

A bit later, Liz and Craig show up to gawk at the bike and say hi.  Eventually Craig and I end up going to the web to get a picture of a Morgan Aero.  When Liz and Irene realized that we were both trying to get a picture of a car from the web, they sort of looked at each other, shook their heads and made some dismissive comment about our actions.  Deservedly.

Then they went home and I went off to write blog posts.  Then I crawled into bed and luxuriated on a mattress with pillows and slept deeply for eight or nice hours.


Thank you, Irene, that was very nice and much appreciated.