We were very much looking forward to staying a few days in this city – and we were not disappointed! We especially liked San Francisco’s diversity: walking only one block, it looked entirely different. And it tasted different too! From Indian, to Chinese, to delicious burgers (contributing to our counter) and trying the famous sourdough bread, it was all in. We enjoyed sightseeing by bicycle all along the Embarcadero with its various piers out to the Golden Gate Bridge. For the hillier parts we walked, though! At the Cable Car museum we learnt what was rumbling underneath the city’s streets since 1873. Moreover though, we were also interested in what was moving the citizens’ hearts today. We attended the baseball game of SF Giants versus Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday evening and lived this part of American Culture. Certainly we didn’t come unprepared and had meticulously studied the rules of the game before. However, we thought it hard to concentrate until the first score happened after two hours only. Therefore we decided to spare out on the last inning (of totally 9 innings) in favor of a Subway sandwich. Finally, we go to know that the visitors also took the victory, scoring 2:1. But for us it was a great evening and a true experience in the stadium. For our last two days in San Francisco we had Philipp’s brother Martin joining us as he was in town for work. During his day off we cycled to the Twin Peaks, the Golden Gate Park and Haight/Ashbury neighborhood, enjoyed good food, the Californian sun and got to have a look at the Solar Impulse plane over San Francisco. Thank you Martin for the visit and the delicious souvenirs from home!
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After a relaxing stay at Katja and Lukas's home, we booked a rental car for eleven days and headed South. Since we had advanced so well in the first three weeks of our biking tour, we decided to take the chance and see the Mojave Desert, Death Valley and Yosemite National Parks.
We started our roadtrip on the very first rainy day of our entire trip so far. We thought, we had mastered this situation quite elegantly... and comfortably spent the day driving southwards in our cosy Hyundai Accent into the Mojave Desert. The next day, weather was sunny again and we visited the airplane graveyard at Mojave airport and the boron mine of the Borax company. Its museum was very well featured and it was impressive to see the sheer size of the mine and what machinery was needed gaining these borates. Continuing our drive towards Death Valley, we passed a few ghost towns with remainings from the mining and gold rush period. Time seemed to have stopped in these small towns and it was apparently today a "gold mine" for aficionados looking for antiquities. However, it faintly made the impression to us that the antiquities sold in these locations looked very similar to what can be found in our grandparents' attics... Anyhow, we reminded ourselves that "historic" has a totally different connotation in the US than it has in Europe!
Before reaching the gates of Death Valley National Park in Panamint Springs, we visited the Pinnacles in Trona, made of tuff. The desert showed its entire beauty with a whole range of sandy colors while simultaneously raining, winding and showing sunshine. The seemingly unlimited vastness of this landscape was striking.
In Death Valley we were lucky to still see many wild flowers in blossom. Being there in spring meant to "only" have temperatures around 30 °C. We concentrated our sight seeing tours to sunrise and sunset time while resting during midday. It also proved to be the right strategy for taking pictures: the light was perfect during these hours. We hiked Zabriskie Point, Grover Gulch and Golden Canyon in the morning, drove to Badwater Point and Devil's Golfe Course at sunset and enjoyed one day hiking to Telescope Peak to see the highest peak of the Sierra Nevada (Mount Whitney at 4421 m) and the lowest point of the lower 48 states (Badwater salt pan at -86 m) at the same time. The contrasts demonstrated by nature in this region left us awestruck: for our hike to Telescope Peak we had left our tent in the morning at sea level (30 °C, sand and stone desert) and had lunch at 3368 m (3 °C) where we saw the last snow patches! We also learnt another lesson: signage about road conditions is to be taken more as a suggestion than enforcement…
On the road towards the second part of our roadtrip - Yosemite National Park - we visited the History Museum in Laws/Bishop, before heading for the region around Mamooth Lake/Mono Lake. Since the passes over the Sierra Nevada were mostly still closed due to snow, we had to make a detour through Nevada (Lake Tahoe region). This resulted in a long day of driving and a freezing cold night in the tent, but we made it to “Camp 4” at Yosemite Valley to get one of the last campsites for the weekend.
What we didn't know before heading for Yosemite: the park celebrated the 100-year jubilee of US state parks with free entries for the weekend! All campgrounds were fully booked and for the walk-in campground “Camp 4” - where no reservations were possible - dozens of college students have been driving here for the weekend (we met people from as far as San Diego who drove the entire night to arrive at 4 a.m. in the morning to queue for a site!). So we counted ourselves among the lucky ones and enjoyed two days in the valley, walking on the beautifully laid trails. Although the park nearly burst of visitors, the trails were deserted because everyone seemed to be driving to the major sights by car. Philipp also hiked up to Glacier Point and took pictures of Half Dome and Co. at sunset.
On our way back to Palo Alto we took the famous Route 49 - the gold miner's route - and profited of some pleasant summer days at different lakes.
After 2'500 km (!!!) of car travel and more than 1 kg of gummy bears eaten, we are looking forward to cycle to San Francisco tomorrow where we will spend the rest of the week. After the days off in Monterey, we were happy to be back on the bikes and enjoyed pedalling all along Monterey Bay up to Santa Cruz. We saw strawberry fields across many acres (we now know why the field workers all wear long trousers and shirts despite the heat: all fields are marked "dangerous due to pesticides"...), watched the surfers in Capitola and fought the wind again along the coast towards Pigeon Point Lighthouse. We stayed at the campground in Costanoa and got to know Antoine and Chantal with their children Zoey, Finn and Mette from Colorado. Antoine and Chantal - both with families in Europe - had made many cycling tours in Europe together before and it was great to exchange. After a cozy morning drinking coffee and hot chocolate with them, we headed inland towards Palo Alto, to visit Philipp's friend currently working at Stanford University. In Pescadero we stopped at a recommended Deli/Grocery store and bought a fantastic artichoke bread (yes, Pescadero is famous for the best artichokes in California) and a delicious blackberry pie. Afterwards we were ready to face two passes which lead us to Palo Alto. The street was called "Alpine Road"... take a wild guess, why? Landscape was beautiful, but it was also the first really hot day and it took us the same amount of time for this leg as double the distance the day before. However it was worth all the effort: In the evening we were very warmly welcomed by Katja and Lukas at their house in Palo Alto and enjoyed a fantastic barbecue in their garden. We stayed three days in picturesque and scenic Monterey. The municipal campground lays uphill and was very well managed with free hot water and very clean sanitary spots (we took the chance to wash all our clothes). We talked a bit to Tim, the park ranger, as we noticed that the hike&bike site on the campground also attracted dubious guests. That's a common challenge in urban areas as the climate is relatively mild all year round and hike&bike sites are cheap. Generally, these people do no harm, but we always took our valuables with us all the time. In Monterey we enjoyed walking along the bay, watching the funny harbor seals and endearing sea otters in the marina, visiting the touristy Fisherman's Wharf, famous Cannery Row (which used to be the factory area where sardines were canned) and of course the Aquarium. Of the latter we are still not sure what to think of. The pools were authentically created and the shown species unique to the Californian habitat, which we liked a lot. Also to see the feeding of an entire swarm of sardines in an open sea pool was extremely impressive. On the other side, we were missing in-depth information to the different habitats shown. We perceived everything as quite descriptive, but non-explanatory. Maybe we are simply too spoilt from European zoos :-)!
Aside looking at various creatures from the sea, we also enjoyed fresh seafood! We tried fresh oysters as well as the local clam chowder served in a bread bun and a grilled cod fish sandwich. Very delicious and it really felt like holidays! Tomorrow we will be heading further north. As we are good in time, we might take a detour to Stanford visiting a friend of Philipp and then drive to Yosemite national park by rental car, before heading to San Francisco.
Today we have arrived in Monterey at lunchtime and enjoyed an easy afternoon in town. Naturally, we have taken the chance to update our blog. Here is an idea on where and how our blog entries are created!
After a chilly night (ca. 5° Celsius when getting up in the morning), we were happy to be pedaling again. For the first time during our journey we were wearing gloves and a hat. Honestly, we thought we will be using these further north only... But apparently the mornings along the Californian coast can be foggy and cold in spring. Shortly before San Luis Obispo we turned towards the coast and followed the Los Osos Valley Road. Around lunchtime, the landscape had entirely changed and we arrived at Morro Bay State Park – probably the most beautiful campground we stayed on so far. After mounting our still wet tent, we explored the beach village on the unloaded bikes. A small marina with sailing boats and a bird refuge was situated just next to the campground. We spotted a sea otter and cormorants. Morro Bay was very picturesque with a prominent rock in midst of the bay, called Morro Rock. On our next morning’s ride, the landscape changed once more and the coast became rougher, while cows were grazing on the hills. Sometimes it even reminded us slightly of Iceland (as strange as this sounds). After a lunch stop at the beach in Cambria, we continued to San Simeon, seeing Hearst Castle and its wine county to our right, straight to the bay where a colony of sea elephants was rooking. The sea elephant cows and their puppies were sleeping at the beach, sometimes shoveling themselves into the sand or fighting for the best spot. They were very entertaining! Have a look at two small videos :-). Philipp remembered to have been here already with his family when he was a child. Pedaling on, we realized that we must have already entered the Big Sur area. Highway 1 suddenly got steeper and many curves followed, while the shoulder for bicyclists basically disappeared. One can compare it with the roads in Ticino. Drivers were clearly not used to mountainous area and even the Swiss girl learnt to cycle hills :-)! As an additional challenge, the wind was hitting in strongly and all the campgrounds we previously envisioned to reach for this leg did either not exist or were closed… Luckily we had power bars with us! Finally, we made it to Plaskett Creek State Park after 6 pm and were very happy to find a free spot on the site reserved for Hike&Bike campers. There we met Rita and Thomas from Vancouver, who were cycling from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo during their spring break. We spent a great evening together and they even invited us to stay at their place near Vancouver, once we reach it in summer. We are already very much looking forward to this!
Although the area around Plaskett Creek was beautiful, we decided to move on the next day with a shorter leg to Big Sur Pfeiffer State Park. Once more, the road went up and down (contributing to the rising altitude counter!), but when reaching the campground, we learnt that the roughest part of Big Sur was now behind us. The Big Sur Pfeiffer State Park was in midst of a redwood tree forest – our first one! The height, diameter and bark of these redwood trees is astonishing! For dinner we enjoyed a burger and cheesecake at the lodge next to the campground. We decided to make use of the many walking trails and stayed two nights. Our next stop should be Monterey – meaning, we have already reached 2/3 of our route from Los Angeles to San Francisco. |
Blog Archive
September 2016
CountersKilometers pedalled
Hours on the bike
Meters cycled uphill
Flat tires
Burgers eaten
Bears sighted
Day by day statisticsFor those interested in our day by day activities and statistics, please download the following document.
World Clock
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