Day Ten: Stillwater Cove to San Francisco

It was very foggy between Stillwater and Jenner … the park ranger has warned us that Bodega Bay is notoriously foggy and often the fog doesn’t burn off.  We rode a few winding climbs and descents in the morning before our breakfast stop.

On the run-in to Jenner we passed this estuary that had some really killer current coming in from the ocean.  I wish I’d taken a south-facing picture as we descended into Jenner.  It was very scenic.

We ate breakfast at the coffee shop in Jenner.  We chatted with two guys who’d lived in the area for many years.  We even talked a bit about HealthVault!

11:05am: leaving Jenner we saw a guy on the side of the road selling smoked salmon.  I figured my dad would get a kick out of this sign.

11:23am: more scenic beaches

12:30pm: large group of cyclists from Marin doing a century and a double century in Sonoma County

1:30pm: countryside

Shortly after this, my phone ran out of batteries.  I tried to recharge it at lunch but I must have picked a bad outlet, so I was phoneless and cameraless for the rest of the day.  I was able to steal a few pictures from Vaibhav.  This is me during the run-in to Point Reyes Station.

We ate lunch at a market in Point Reyes Station that advertised the presence of burritos and tortas on a large sign outside.  They were showing a NASCAR race on a big screen TV inside.  It seemed a bit out of place.

After leaving PRS, we had one final “climb” on the Sir Francis Drake parkway.  Once again, the pictures in the guidebook made it look a lot worse than it really was and soon we were on the gently downslope to Lagunitas.  The road was very rough in this area but our friends in San Francisco said that the alternate route (staying on Route 1 through Stinson Beach) included some crazy-steep hills.  Note: if a hill seems crazy-steep on your regular bike, then it will likely be hell on two wheels with a touring bike.

We got to Lagunitas and rolled on through the Marin suburbs – Fairfax, Mill Valley, Sausalito… eventually we found ourselves on roads that I’d ridden before.  I did an easy 2-hour spin after the San Francisco Triathlon.  I’d also ridden to Tiburon with Loren last year when he lived there and I was racing something-or-other in SFO.  Jessi and I had ridden a tandem over the Golden Gate Bridge and into Sausalito while in SFO on vacation a few years back, too.  All that experience with the local roads helped as a few of the intersections near Mill Valley didn’t have bike route signs.

We stopped for a few pictures before and after the bridge, plus one shot mid-span as we passed the San Francisco City Limits sign,

And finally, a picture of me biting my lower lip so that you don’t see how badly sunburned/windburned it is after riding 1000 miles in 10 days!  WOOOHOOOO!

 

Day Nine: MacKerricher to Stillwater Cove Campground (Ocean Cove, CA)

After packing up camp on Day Nine, Andrew, Vaibhav and I headed in to Fort Bragg for breakfast.  We ate at the Wizard-of-Oz themed Eggheads Restaurant.  The food was quite good but we had to wait a very long time to get a table.  We felt a little silly waiting that long when there appeared to be other options in town, but it was the kind of situation where you’re reluctant to give up after already waiting a bit.

I ordered my usual two-plate breakfast – bacon and eggs on one plate, French toast on the other.  In my defense, we did share the French toast this time around.

After breakfast, Viabhav and I rode on while Andrew stayed in town to meet up with some friends from Ukiah.

We rode over a few small bridges on the way out of Fort Bragg

Noon: random coastal shots

12:40pm: some big rocks on the beach, just visible through the fog

12:50pm: we pulled off at a bed and breakfast in order to get a closer look at this arch just off the beach

1pm: We passed a sign for a rather intriguing bar that was only open on Fridays and Saturdays.

Vaibhav and I stopped for lunch in Point Arena.  The burrito place that was mentioned in my guidebook wasn’t open anymore but there were three or four organic markets and lunch places to choose from.  My guidebook said that Point Arena was once a haven for hippies who left San Francisco to pursue alternative lifestyles.

We grabbed an assortment of snacks and some sandwiches and ate a hearty lunch while looking at old banners from the city’s centennial. 

As we wrapped up lunch, I laid down for a moment on the bench in the market and actually fell asleep.  I was DONE. 

But the short nap did me well.  Or maybe it was the bottle of fresh, local apple juice and the large quantity of chocolate chips that I ate with lunch…

The run-in to Gualala (last town in Mendocino County) was fast and pleasant, with an encouraging tailwind.

5:08pm: welcome to Sonoma County!

We rode through more dense fog in northern Sonoma County.  It felt a bit dangerous with the lack of shoulder and the somewhat fast traffic.  I’d read about a Eucalypt Grove in one of the guidebooks and hoped that there would be less fog there. 

6:30pm: we the grove.  The heavy smell of the Eucalypts reminds me of racing at the Escape from Alcatraz.  Eucalypts are a non-native tree (they’re native to Australia, of course) but they seemed quite common in northern California and I didn’t sense a lot of desire to get rid of them, although they must be displacing some native species and the animals that would use them for food and/or shelter.

Around 7pm we rode into the town of Ocean Cove.  There were four campgrounds in the immediate vicinity of the town – two in the State Park before town and one immediately after the town, plus a commercial car-camp in town.  The camp past town (Stillwater Cove) had showers and hiker/biker sites so we went there.  We saw signs at the first park that outlined the rules and limits for mushroom gathering.  Apparently Salt Point State Park is a great place to find mushrooms.  We even found one in our campsite.

In town I met some kids from Sacramento who ride BMX bikes back home.  We sat around a bit and talked about bikes before rolling out.

At Stillwater Cove they gave us so much wood that we needed a wheelbarrow.  (All of the California campgrounds sold firewood for $7 per bundle.)

This was the only night that we were all alone in the hiker/biker area, but a family of car/RV-campers with lots of toys was in the next site.  They had a canopy to eat under, an RV, two very large tents, …

8:45pm: A few more shots at the campground:

We were visited by a raccoon before going to sleep but it was too dark to take any pictures.