Day 26 & 27

I’m going to title this next section, “Where soul meets body” or at least “Where my food comes from meets the sea”. Since leaving Half Moon Bay yesterday, the ride goes along California’s agricultural central coast. That’s not entirely true because the first half of Monday’s ride took me though grasslands that extended to the beaches. Not many cliffs here! I passed Pescadero State Beach (birds!), Pie Ranch (snacks!), and Big Basin, a place where my mother used to go as a young teenager from Oakland. A fire passed through the area a few years ago and there was quite a scar left behind. Shortly after, I passed a redwood sawmill, saved from the fire and likely the last sawmill on the coast. Then the ag began.

When I rode up to Jake’s house in Santa Cruz (Live Oak, actually), his wife Jess, and two dogs greeted me. Jake was celebrating a friend’s birthday with a 100-mile ride and showed up about an hour later. What a friend! Santa Cruz is the archetypal surfer town. Jake said his middle school changed their mascot from the surfers to the sea dragons. What a letdown that must have been! They were very gracious hosts and I look forward to seeing Jake again before I get to San Diego. He resumes his ride this coming Sunday. 

Shortly after leaving Jake’s house yesterday, I rode right into a group of 10 retired San Francisco Fire Department bicyclists on their way to Monterey. We had an awesome ride together and they took me to within 10 miles of Salinas where I was going to catch an Amtrak thru-bus to Paso Robles. Much of the landscape consisted of very nice rural homes and strawberry fields, right in the middle of harvest. In fact, the specialty crop industrial complex was in clear view. I ate with the firemen, and then bid them a safe ride.

There was nothing about this type of farming that differed from any other larger scale ag enterprise except the soil was different. Beautiful, dark, loamy soil everywhere. As I watched the farmworkers pick strawberries and harvest cabbages, I pledged to never take my fresh food for granted ever again. My friend, Randy, recites a meal blessing that mentions the 100+ people who bring him his meal. Just being in Salinas felt like a connection to the Earth. I spent time at a California Tourism museum next to the Amtrak station and was in awe of the Valley’s ag and railroad history. I also freshened up on the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. That’s another entirely unique story worth some investigative time. 

The bus ride through the Salinas Valley was incredibly enlightening, and I’m glad I didn’t ride my bike through it. Not the same as riding along the coast. When I arrived to Paso Robles, guess who was there? Tom! We arranged to meet at the train station and ride the five miles to where we are now, Franklin Hot Springs. The soaks were restorative and we’re going to need that as we ride today to San Simeon. Happy trails!