July 9th, 2009

To Bodega Bay

We knew we were in for a long day. The maps say 65 miles. We will be on the coast, so more hilly riding. Our bike still makes noises. It is worse when we go up hills in low gears. We just have to ride on. Again more beautiful coastline. We ride through Sea Ranch. I have seen many pictures of this development in college classes. I think Charles Moore had a hand in the design or design standards. Extending 12 miles, all of the houses are similar so as not to detract form the scenery. There are only a couple of exterior color variations. I wish we could have used one of the four beach access points to hike down and see the coast line. When you know you are riding 60+ miles, you tend to not want to go on side trips. Too bad for us. Ev wanted to stop at the Russian settlement of Fort Ross, but again, not enough to take the time.

There is a five mile stretch were we cross many cattle guards. These are not hard to ride over but we see no cattle. All of the sudden we see cattle. All over, and some right next to the road. We both stay to ourselves. The rode is very narrow in places. Ev directs traffic from the back. No close calls.

We are about 2 miles from the campsite and a different noise appears. It has us both worried. We make it to the camp site. The hiker/biker site is not very nice. One table in the middle of a lot of sand. We choose to pay for a regular site since we need to look at our bike hoping that someone will share it with us later. Four college guys ride up and want to share the site. We saw them last night too. We ask if any of them is good with bike mechanics and Marcel steps right up. He correctly deduces that the disk brake pads are worn out and that the tension spring is mangled. Someone says there is a bike shop in town. Marcel gets the brake back together enough to ride, so we go 2 miles into town. The first local says there is not a bike shop in town. Feeling slightly disheartened we decide to eat dinner out. Ev is ready to call Kendal to come get us. I use my Blackberry and see that there is a bike shop. We ask the waiter and he confirms. It is almost dark, and really windy but we have to ride back to camp. We plan our day tomorrow to do laundry and get the bike fixed.