Woke up around 5:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. I really wanted a nice sit down breakfast, but all the local places opened at 8:00. The neighborhood Denny’s opened at 7:00. I honestly thought of hanging around until 7:00 and having Denny’s before leaving town. Eventually I got anxious to move so I packed up, checked out, and rode over to Starbucks for breakfast instead.
I want to say this morning was the first morning of this trip where the sun wasn’t hidden behind clouds. It felt weird in a way. I was surprised to see my shadow falling on the road in front of me. I tried, and failed, to get some shots of it. The one I finally settled on was from the side. It was the best of them all in clearly showing me and all the gear strapped to the bike. I’ve also been trying to get a video of me riding in a window reflection to no avail.
The ride today was shorter than I had originally planned. I had planned on starting the day at Greenfield, but I skipped over Greenfield for King City for my rest day. Considering the weather I’m really glad I did. I’m also glad I didn’t wait around town for breakfast.
The route started by crossing more farmland. I was feeling slow like my legs hadn’t recovered during the day of. Only now looking at the elevation chart do I understand that I spent most of the start of the ride climbing. It was a brutal slog.
After making it over the top, I just cruised for a while enjoying the scenery. It had changed from farmland to rolling wild fields. They were pot marked with small groves of trees. It was quite pretty.
Eventually came just short of intersecting with US-101 and made a right turn to head up to Lake Nacimiento. The road was more rolling hills and eventually starting to be more climbing.
I saw one of the earth dams and a sign saying to take a right. As I rounded the corner I saw the climb ahead of me and thought, “Well shit.”. By this point it was getting hot. Figures I would try to ride in this area when they get their first heat wave of the summer. To make matters worse I still had my wool base layer on which did me no favors. I ground it out and eventually made it to camp without issue.
In all honesty the camp isn’t what I had hoped for. It’s near a lake, but high enough you get no cooling from it. There are a ton of people here who decided to come out and make a long holiday weekend of it. The sites are damn near right on top of one another too. At least the one I selected is. I could have been more isolated but getting my gear to that site would have been a challenge. I keep reminding myself that it’s only for a night and you’ll be back along the coast, state parks, and hike/bike sites.
After getting everything setup I went to the local store to grab lunch, dinner and breakfast stuff. Once back at camp I ate and continued reading my book. I kept moving my chair with the shade as the sun marched across the sky and it honestly wasn’t too bad despite the 100 ish degrees it was. Some shade and a little breeze go a long way.
Did a check of the weather and my next camp along the coast is expecting a high of less than 70. I’m sure I’ll roll in, get camp setup, and proceed to freeze and complain about it! Thankfully tomorrow is another short ride. I really like getting to camp early and having the afternoon to relax.
New bike fund: $6.42 (+$0.01)
52.19 new miles — From Wandrer.earth
Sunny-Sunny, 53°F-90°F, Feels like 55°F-101°F, Humidity 86%-28%, Wind SE 2mph-NNW 3mph – by Klimat.app
— myWindsock Report —
Weather Impact: -1.7%
Headwind: 30% @ 1.2-5.8mph
Longest Headwind: 26m 13s
Air Speed: 12mph
Temp: 54.6-82.1°F
Precip: 0% @ 0 Inch/hr
— END —
Max elevation: 1402 ft
Min elevation: 281 ft
Total climbing: 3425 ft
Total descent: -2816 ft
Total time: 06:37:28
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