Day 14: Big Surprise at the End of the Road!

Day 14: Santa Cruz, California

Distance for the day: 296.0 km

Cumulative distance: 2,854.4 km

Top speed: 128 kph

Moving average: 67 kph

Temperature: 15.8 - 22.4

We opted to forego Salinas in favour of another night in Santa Cruz so that we would not have to pack up and move today and just carry on to San Luis Obispo on Sunday morning. This allowed us to have breakfast, lounge around the room drinking coffee and talk about where we would visit, which was a pretty easy discussion: we would ride down the coast to Big Sur. If you are our generation (or older) you might remember Johnny Rivers singing about Big Sur (You must be over 65 to use this link.)

Some murals painted along the
highway through Santa Cruz.

Sand dunes ready to engulf the highway.

This is typial of the geology along the
edge of the road towards Big Sur.

This was the area still under repair but
with traffic control to allow vehicles to
pass on the single open lane.

A careful check of the map revealed that the route to Big Sur is a continuation of Hwy 1 down the coast, so I was expecting more of what we have been seeing however, between Santa Cruz and Carmel-By-The-Sea it is pure slab riding of four or six lanes of heavy traffic. There were not twists, few turns and rather than scenic views of the ocean, we were treated to endless miles of farmland where we saw strawberries, and artichokes and a few other low ground vegetables. There was many vegetable stalls where lemons were sold (7 for $1) and avocados (also 7 for $1) and local pistachios, all exotic to us. Also, being a Saturday morning and the kick off to the summer season (at least, in our eyes) I am guessing that the traffic was probably busier than a typical Saturday of people going off to the beach. Also, even though it was heavily overcast and looked like rain, the forecast was actually for a sunny day so I am sure lots of people wanted to take advantage of that. 

So, an hour to Carmel-By-The-Sea in heavy traffic and gloomy skies. Past Carmel, the road got narrow and twisty, though not gnarly tight like north of San Francisco. There were moments where the look over the edge was quite precarious and on one occasion I just said to Nan, "don't look over" and she confirmed that she had no intent. But the traffic remained very heavy and every turn-out and vista point was overloaded with vehicles filled with people out on an excursion for the view. We stopped several times and took our turn, particularly when the turnout was paved. We had a discussion about which coastline was better: north of SF or south of SF. I largely had to defer because Nan sees much more than me. I see a lot of road, even though I ride much slower hoping to look around a little more, if there is a 90 degree turn pending, speed has little to do with whether you are looking around. I don't think we really came to a conclusion. 

We hadn't been to Big Sur for maybe twenty years. We had taken a rental car there when visiting a friend in the area but I really remembered very little. It is not a village like a little Banff, it is more like a collection of businesses at varying distances along a road may 10 or 15 km long. Also, some, what appear to be, very expensive homes interspersed. Big Sur is the big surprise (at the end of the road)! There are three gas stations, numerous inns, campgrounds, convenience-type stores, and cafes and a few restaurants. They are not even necessarily collected together but in small groups, most of which compete for parking space for their customers. We had seen a sign near Carmel-By-The-Sea indicating that Big Sur businesses were open, to try to keep discouraged travelers from bailing out of the drive down the coast, which they had likely been doing due to the washed out road. A year ago January, heavy rains washed debris down the side of the mountains, taking out four sections of highway between Big Sur and Cambria, some way to the south. One section has reopened, though repairs are not completed and we rode through that section today. The other three are much more severe and two are expected to reopen in July and the last in the fall. At one time, our plan would have been to ride Hwy 1 all the way to Cambria and continue on south along the coast but that is not possible at this time. We rode to the end of the road, which in fact, is not exactly where Big Sur is located. It is about 26 km south of Big Sur.

The end of the line. No surprise after all!

We saw what we thought were
horses stranded on this bluff!

Turns out there is a trail.

5-way intersection in Carmel.
I have never seen that before.

Just about back to the motel
and we saw this car.

They are the local bad asses.

As such, our route today was a simple out-and-back. There were no short cuts, scenic routes or diversions, other than a brief ride through Carmel-By-The-Sea. I suggested to Nan that we get off the bike and walk around the shops a little, to which she replied, "not in these boots!" I said, "But Sweetie, those boots are made for walkin'!" We just kept riding. 

And me, of course.
It was nice riding today without
all the gear strapped to the bike.