Day 27 – Ride Day Twenty: Gualala to Tomales

Todays Ride: 61.09 Miles / 97.74KM
Max: 36.8 Miles / 58.87 KMh
ODO: 902.2 Miles / 1443.51 KM including missed days: 1202.2 Miles/1923.5KM

This morning was absolutely fantastic! I woke up (naturally) just before 7am, feeling completely rested(for once) and excited at the prospect of the day ahead. Mind you, that was made much easier by the delicious smells that soon started to flow from the kitchen of our extremely gracious hosts!
After finally dragging my comfortable rear-end out of bed I headed up to discover what was tempting my nose, to be offered a host of delicious drinks! Coffee, tea, juice, water? I felt so spoiled.

Surprisingly we had a menu for breakfast: Cinnamon Cake, (fresh)fruit salad and an egg frittata bake type thing. All of which were absolutely delicious, and made by Paul and Paddy. So we’re not even an hour into the morning and I’m having one of the best days of the tour, because now all 8 of us were seated around a beautiful table, in comfortable seats, in front of a gorgeous view and chatting up our hosts. What prior to this was a good meal, and a chat with our hosts before bed, was now an extremely comfortable and informal breakfast.

I packed up for the ride ahead and made my way outside where just before leaving Paddy summed up our comfort in saying “I don’t even know your names, but is has been a pleasure having you, and I hope you have a safe and wonderful journey.”
Imagine that, at what very well might be the most enjoyable and comfortable accommodation we’ve had yet, not a single person introduced themselves to the other, and yet we spent time together like we could have been friends for years.
I don’t quite know how to further describe how enjoyable that was, but how bad I felt for not introducing myself. Though they knew where we were from, why we were on this journey, and what it was for and even some of what we did for a living and education, but no names.

This comfort expanded into our slow approach to packing up as I don’t think anyone else wanted to leave either, but alas, we were on a journey south and this stay was just one AMAZING part of the trip. Just before heading out I remembered that I did indeed have a business card in the depths of my panniers and I dug one out for Paddy so that she could find at least me and I could put everyone else in contact if desired.

We said our goodbyes, and headed on down through this wonderful neighbourhood – slowly – and back out to the highway where we very quickly turned off again! Two nights ago the couple we met from San Jose told us about this odd sculpted chapel a few miles south of Gualala, and this chapel turned out to be a whole half mile from our stay in Sea Ranch. Our stop, although early, was fairly long. Here we were in a gorgeous structure built for the people, for nothing more than a quiet sanctuary, and let me tell you, it is beautiful! There is stained glass, curved everything, seats and benches made out of reclaimed wood, and it was far enough from the highway to be extremely quiet.

It is too bad that the chapel was so early in the morning because beyond it, lay mile after mile after mile of boring asphalt. There were even some more of the oh-so-painful hairpins of days prior.
I was starting to get quite jaded by this whole coast road, I mean yeah, it was beautiful being on the coast, but as someone mentioned in Oregon “after you see a bunch of rocks sticking out of the water, every other rock sticking out of the water is just that: a rock sticking out of the water.” The hairpins had grown old, the cliffs of immense danger had grown old, and the increasing temperature was growing old. But this all changed on the outer edge of  a hairpin some 35 miles into the journey. As the grade started to level out, and the gears came crawling back, the legs softened, and suddenly you were free to look up and see in front of you a landscape that for me epitomizes Italian highways. For what appeared to be miles in distance and hundreds of feet in height (down and then back up) were two lanes of glorious pavement.
The Top Gear fan in me completely ignored the glorious ocean view to my right and instead stopped to ensure that my video camera was recording and to look at the driving pleasure or in this case, riding pleasure in front of me. The descent of highway 1 started at a nice gentle pace, calmly winding around boulders and between cliffs leaving you with views of the road ahead the entire way, whilst curving to offer you ocean views as well.
View Larger Map

After this incredible stretch of road (and honestly, a hellish climb back up) we headed on into Jenner for our lunch and to enjoy what we just experienced. I was mind-blown by it!
Lunch was great, obviously getting the butt off the bike for a few minutes helps, but hydrating, and having some sandwiches was good. And because we had still not seen the rest of the group, snacks were in order! I indulged in an Oreo Ice Cream bar and then started talking to an older man whom was stopped here as he was heading north to the BC border and then east to New York! He said the journey would take him about 9 weeks and cover near 4000 miles!

To add to the entertainment and wonder of this stop further… WARREN!
Holy crap, his timely appearances have been so  awesome, he never fails to surprise us. As we had been around for a while though we were keen to get going and as such left him behind with the intent to stop ever 10 miles or so and “enjoy” the last 25-30 miles.

But easier said than done. As once I got back on my bike, I really didn’t want to stop for anything but water/gatorade. And holy crap was it ever getting hot out. About 7 miles from our destination I pulled up to Julie who was wisely huddled in some shade, and I stopped there with her for a few minutes to try and recover some lost liquids. There were some nasty hills in this stretch and the glaring sun was not helping. I consumed the last bits of liquid in my bottles and headed for the last 7 miles with just a bit of water left in my Camelbak.

Highway 1 pulled a little surprise and did a 90 degree turn at an intersection which felt misleading. And sadly the turn led us to a stretch which was in TERRIBLE shape and had less tree cover than the last 20 miles. The road narrowed and led us down some very rolling hills before finally bringing us to one final, and monstrous hill.

I don’t know about anyone else, but the last thing I was expecting was a hill into yet another town, but this hill was something else. This was just plain nasty. But slowly, very slowly, I crawled my way to the top and rolled down the hill into town and plopped myself in some shade. As we’d come to expect over the past few weeks, there were other cyclists here, and thanks to our days off there were a few I’d not seen/spoken to before so I had a few conversations. One conversation was with two Frenchmen (yes, from France) who were cycling from Kelowna, BC to Argentina, and another rider from Portland who was cycling to Los Angeles before heading back to school.

As these riders had more ambitious goals/timelines than we did, they soon rode off into the distance as I stayed stationary in town until the rest of the gang showed up. Upon their arrival we headed up to the church and commenced unpacking, so thrilled to be there.

There was however a kink in the group happiness as Sarah could not find her camera and feared that it was at a beach about 10 miles from where we started the day. Graciously, Amelia offered to drive her back to see if they could locate the thing, and the rest of us got to cooking/eating.

The dinner menu: Lasagna, Garlic Bread, Mixed Greens and some Vanilla/Orange Sherbet. Delicious!

Upon return we were happy to find that Sarah located and reclaimed her camera, and was all smiles about it!

Thank goodness!