Car, train, and bike


March 7, 2023
Santa Cruz to Salinas, to San Lois Obispo. Trainride and biking .14 miles or about 22 km.

I woke early this morning because Peter, our Warm Shower host, will drive us to Salinas Amtrak train station. There is still a big mudslide around Big Sur and the road remains closed. Last night we organized all our gear while Peter put our bikes and his mountain bike into the Mercedes travel van. 

I like to say a huge thank you to Maura and Peter for hosting us.

We arrived early and had to wait till after 11 am before the station opened. I was unable to remove my battery. Broke my nail and broke my spirit.  Walked away from it and finished organizing our check-in bags. Vicki tried one more time and voila, she got it. There is a trick in removing the battery and thanks to Vicki I know how to do it. 



The train was 20 minutes late because of flooding. Although the station attended wasn't the most helpful person, together we got it done. The ride will be about 3.5 hrs so arriving quite late. We still have to bike 14 miles(22km), get bags organized and setup camp. But for now we are enjoying the ride and I am excited about what is to come.






Finding a camp was way more challenging than we thought.  The State Parks want a reservation which is difficult to do for cyclists. Rv parks make more on the big rigs than on tents. No more cheap sites for cyclists because of an ever growing homeless population. We searched everywhere all the while it got darker. Nothing so I suggested to camp at the beach.  So we did.


Around 10 pm the ranger called Vicki out of her tent and before I knew, I got instructed to come out as well. 2 rangers and a police officer were standing outside my tent, batons ready.  When they saw 2 seniors crawl out of their tents they apologized. However, they made us break up camp, load our bikes and head over to the camping where we had ask the ranger to help us which he didn't. We arrived at 12 midnight.  Cold, full of sand and so tired. Yet we had a good laugh. Back to bed at 1 am. What an introduction to camping for Vicki.

Well, it's a good thing you didn't pepper spray the policemen and they didn't taser you! (Cliff).




Comments

  1. Cliff11 March 2023 at 20:39

    Well, it's a good thing you didn't pepper spray the policemen and they didn't taser you!

    ReplyDelete

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