Day Two, 090302 - Pescadero, CA

Day Two: Monday, March 2, 2009
Distance for the Day: 42.0 miles: Devil’s Slide to Pescadero
Starting/Ending Alt 600'/225'
Speeds: Avg: 7.2 mph, Max: 36.8 mph
Weather: Cool, overcast, strong, gusty winds 20-30mph early, heavy-to-normal showers throughout the day.
Expenditures: $31

(Sorry for the lack of fine details on Starting Altitude, Highest Altitude Attained, Accumulated Altitude, and Time in Saddle – I’m still trying to figure out how to work my #@*% altimeter watch and cyclometer.) I woke up at 6:19am, with the weather overcast, but not currently raining. Boy, that Devil’s Slide sure gets a lot of traffic! I packed up all my gear (wet – yuck – but clean, since it was on concrete and not dirt), put my trike on the road side of the concrete barriers, loaded the panniers back onto it, and was ready to roll again at 7:48am. A cyclist, also named Don, stopped to chat with me, there at the top of the Slide. Seems he commutes to Half Moon Bay from Pacifica every day up and over Devil’s Slide. Now that’s hard core! Stopped for lunch at Starbucks in Half Moon Bay at 12:42pm, and stayed a few hours to do blog entries on my notebook (while the battery was still good). I used the Starbucks card my astro friend Tom L gave me + ($3) more to get a sandwich and hot choco drink (thanks, Tom!). While I was in Starbucks, the rain turned torrential for a while, so I was glad to be inside at the moment. After leaving Starbucks, I bought a deli sandwich ($5) to eat later from Safeway. Weather now was on and off rain. Got first call from Auntie M. Asked her to send my computer’s power supply forward to Auntie Elsie in L.A. Somewhere in Half Moon Bay, I lost my biking goggles. That was a pisser – those were nice, expensive, goggles; light sensitive, foam inserts to keep out wind and rain – Demitol! (Oh, you’ll see that “brand name” every now and then in my writings. Listen to how it sounds when you say it fast, and you’ll get the meaning.) I met and got my picture taken by a couple from Michigan. At 3pm I stopped to see the sights at San Gregorio Beach. At 3:37pm I took detour off of Hwy 1 a mile or two into Pescadero to buy more supplies. Oops! Now I lost one of my gloves! I hung them both on my flagpole to dry out, and one of them escaped. They weren’t cheap, either! (Note to self: stop losing stuff.) At 5:30pm bought another pair of lightly tinted sunglasses in lieu of real goggles at the Pescadero general store; also bought some food items ($23). I stopped to ask the local fire department guy where there might be a good place to overnight; they suggested Butano State Park, about 6 miles further inland, off of Cloverfield Ave. By the time I got there, it was dark, but I went up the park entrance road and got to the entry gate anyway, and found out the price was $25 to camp overnight With seemingly no other options, I was resigned to having to pay, so went up the road to the campsites. The road became steep, and it was still pretty far before I got to the campsites, when I realized I lost my new sunglasses! I decided I was not going to lose those glasses, so I went back to the entry gate (not there), and then back out to the road where I last remember having them, and found them on the ground. At this point, I really didn’t want to wend my way back into the park to pay $25 to lay out my sleeping bag, so I just found a wide part of the park entry road, and set up my gear there, instead. And, it was fine – no one bothered me, I was about 150 yards from the street (Cloverfield), so got almost no traffic noise, and it didn’t rain all night (except for a half-minute sprinkle at 4am, so I got a good night’s sleep. Odd note: I was in such a rush to set up camp I never did eat the deli sandwich I bought in Half Moon Bay – my stomach was growling a lot, but I didn’t feel hungry. Go figure. I think I got to bed around 8:30pm.