Day 21
September 2nd 2008
Big Sur, CA to San Simeon, CA
71.9 Miles
After typing up yesterday’s journal entry, I wandered back to camp and found that I had two new neighbors a young man on a fully loaded bike with a BOB trailer in tow, and an older lady who was hanging out in the back corner of the campground. His name was Brant, and tonight was his last night on the road. He had been riding for three months, the entire summer. He started in Missoula, MT and road across the northern part of Idaho and Washington, and then down the coast. He was thrilled to be getting done tomorrow and eager to go back to work. He really needed the money. Plus school was going to start soon. He was studying engineering at Cal-Poly SLO campus. I told him about my journey, and how I was getting excited about my own impending finish. I figured he’d agree with me that going solo is more challenging and can be lonely.
He saw it differently. He enjoyed having the solitude on the bicycle and he felt that it made him more open to talk to strangers. Well he was talking to me so I suppose he was correct on that point. We talked for a few more minutes but here, under the tall trees, it gets dark early. I realized I hadn’t made dinner yet so we said our goodbyes and wished each other ’safe journey’
My other neighbor was an lady who had tucked herself in the far corner of the camp site. I didn’t see a bicycle anywhere, so I guessed she had walked into the campground. She spent the entire evening building a campfire and then pacing around it. I decided to call her the Wiccan. I also decided to let her work her magic uninterrupted. I made myself dinner and then went to bed.
The next morning I was up before both Brant and the Wiccan (who was sleeping under a blanket on top of the picnic table). I packed up and started pedaling. The ride began with a long slow climb of about 2 miles. I’m getting in pretty good riding shape but these early morning climbs are brutal. The rest of the day was spent riding up and down the Big Sur Coastline, but the first climb was the hardest and the slowest.
Fire scarred hillside.
That's Big Sir to You!
I rode through areas where there had been a fire, and I road through areas where there had been rock slide. It was beautiful, and I was glad there was a road for me to follow, but I realized that this is an inhospitable environment. I began to see Route 1 as struggling to survive the next day just as I was struggling to reach the top of the next hill. For the next 40 miles the macadam desperately clung to the unforgiving hillside. A mere shrug of its shoulders and the road would tumble into the sea.
At one point I had to stop to fix a flat tire (my second) and at the pullout there was monument to a nasty slide back in 1998. It took out over 200 feet of roadway and the repairs lasted nearly a year. The sign indicated that the 98 slide was only a small one compared to a bigger one that happened thousands of years ago at this same spot. You could look up and see that the outline of the 98 slide was dwarfed by the outline of the ancient one. The monument also acknowledged the likelihood of another major slide sometime in the future. It is just a part of the cycle that occurs here along the coastline. At least the road builders realize the futility of their efforts and that one day, the hill will assert its dominance and remove the marks of man…again.
I was thankful that the road and the hill maintained their tenuous relationship for one more day. I was also thankful that the road dropped down from the bluffs of the Big Sur and flattened out for the rest of the day.
Where did the hills go?
The closest I got to Hearst Castle.
I had two twilight zone moments today that reminded me that this trip has been a strange one. Earlier in the day I realized I lost my red windbreaker. I think it flew off my bike on one of the faster descents. I was lamenting its loss since it helped keep me warm when the sun went down, and I was trying to figure out where I could get a replacement. About 15 miles after I realized it was missing, I saw a red piece of clothing on the opposite side of the highway. I could see it had white lettering on the back just like mine so I stopped to examine it. Unbelievably it was my missing red windbreaker. It was tattered but mostly complete. I can only assume it fell off my bike, got caught on some passing car and finally was deposited here, for me to retrieve. I have no other explanation. Weird, or at least statistically improbable.
The cap to the strangeness came when, while I was sitting in camp, in walked the Wiccan who proceeded to set up in the campsite next to mine. I biked close to 72 miles, did she fly here on her magic broom? She didn’t build fire tonight but still, creepy.
Maury
