We opted for the EARLY departure on Thursday morning. Which meant cold too. We took off from Lisa Curran's house near Santa Teresa and Bernal. Our destination for today would be King City. The skies were clear and it WAS cold! Southward we wandered, picking up speed with the heat in the atmosphere. We made a quick potty stop at the Bolsa Chevron station at the end of Santa Teresa. The day was warming up nicely. Big Al was down to short sleeves top and bottom. I wasn't quite that warm yet!
Working our way steadily southward, we arrived at San Juan Batuista. Up and over San Juan Grade and then the bone jarring rut infested descent down the other side. Not our favorite descent. Once down the other side of San Juan Grade it would be flat farm lands all the way to King City. Through Strawberry fields and Broccoli crops we flew.
Our next stop would be in Gonzolas. Another gas station off Hwy 101. That's pretty much all you can count on being open on T-day. Emptied and refueled, we were off and rolling. Through Solidad and onto Metz Road. You usually get a rippin' tailwind here. It wasn't rippin' but it was favorable! Up and down a few big rollers and we were in the town of King City. A few more blocks and we arrived at Keefer's Motel, our home for the night.
A quick shower, a short rest, then regroup and over to Keefer's restaurant for the Turkey day feed! Great dinner! Turkey and all the trimmings. Made all that much better by the exercise preceeding it, and the fact there would be no dishes to do!
We waddled back to our room after dinner and watched James Bond movies for a while. After sufficient digestion time we treated ourselves to a soak in Keefer's killer Hot tub. Just what the leg doctor ordered!
Next morning, you guessed it - breakfast at Keefer's. We got a little later start than yesterday, making for a much more favorable temperature!
20 miles down the road and were in San Ardo, potty stop! Off we go zooming down Hwy 101. There is a nice wide shoulder that gets blown pretty clean from the cars.
A forced exit off 101 brings us to the booming town of Bradley, population 7, including us! 7 miles down the road we're back on 101, moving with the car draft. A few miles later, off we go again, this time toward San Miguel. We wind our way away from 101 into the farm lands of Paso Robles.
Lunch time in Paso! The Q (That's Sue Kayser) spied us a deli while we navigated traffic in Paso Robles. Excellent choice. Really good sandwiches. And the temps were bordering on hot. Paul (I can eat anything and ride) chose a Rueben sandwich. It looked great, but I wasn't daring the Sauerkraut!
We remounted and headed off. Through Templeton toward Atascadero. We heard that Cuesta Grade had construction going on so we rerouted to Hwy 41 toward Morro Bay. Another excellent choice. A nice climb, no traffic, and an E-ticket descent on the other side that reminded me of Hwy 84 down to San Gregorio.
We soon arrived in Morro Bay and took a quick breather at yet another gas station! Departing Morro Bay we rode on Hwy 1. Not much to see but the road was wide and smooth. We came into San Luis Obispo from the southern end, so the lack of navigating downtown traffic wasn't missed.
Motel 6 was home for tonight. Shower and chow. We dined at Margie's dinner. They give you a ton of food here and a ton of food we all ate. After dinner we went up to Alan and Sue's room to watch Clint Eastwood movies. Nothing like ending a good riding day with Dirty Harry! ZZZZZZZZZ time came quickly,and it was breakfast at Margie's.
Overloaded, we headed off. A nice warm up led us to Price Canyon, a rather nice climb that dropped us over into Arroyo Grande. This section is kind of bogus. Lots of city streets and traffic. Paulywog managed to get our trip's only flat here. We quickly fixed it and were on our way to Santa Maria. More traffic and city navigation. Through Santa Maria and onto 101 for a good long ways.
A forced exit brings us to Los Alamos. A good place to stop and quickly refuel.Then Blast off! 14 miles in 32 minutes! We flew like maniacs. We looked back and Paul was grinning and grimmacing at the same time. We knew Paul could hang, so we hammered on to Buelton.
Alan's grandparents live in Buelton and Big Al's grandma was nice enough to prepare us lunch. It was a Royal feast! I knew it would be tough to get going after this meal. Not as hard for us as it was for Paul. He had two huge pieces of chocolate cake! Oink Oink!
We bid the grandparents goodbye and headed on our way. The trip's biggest climb waited for us. It's not real steep but it sure seems to go on forever. Summiting, we stopped for a quick break, all commenting that the lunch was good the second time too!
We sailed down Gaviota Pass toward the coast. There's a huge roller that smacks you right in the face after this great downhill. You crest its summit and you're on the coast!
Beautiful weather. Warm. The ocean was nice. Too bad I had to watch where we were going! We would get 30 miles of this coastline scenery before exiting 101 for the last time. We had a little head wind on the coast, which was pretty unusual, but the scenery made up for the extra effort.
We stopped at the airport so Sue could pick up their rental car. Judy and I continued on into Santa Barbara to the U-Haul place. We needed a truck to get the tandems back. Then we went back up to the airport to get Alan, Sue, and Paul and their bikes. That all done, we headed to the motel; 6 that is.
A nice hot shower and food was next. Right across the street, we went, and ended our 3 day, 315 mile journey with another feast.
Judy and I head back home early the next day to try and beat the traffic. It seemed to work; we got home at noon. We pulled the bikes out and went and dropped the truck off. By the time we had gotten back, Big All had stopped by to pick up the tandem, only we weren't home. He came and got it later that evening. Paul came and got his the next evening.
Another great T-day trip in the books. This was one of our smallest groups. It worked well for us this time. We pretty much rode the whole way together, nobody in a real big rush to get there. Good people, great group karma, lots of miles, and tons of great food! That's what it's all about!
Thanks again to Judy for hammerin' it out on the tandem. You're awesome!