Day 63 – Just Beachy

Ahhh. Hot Coffee before the ride. And refrigerated yogurt and museli. Luxury.

However, even the ethereal Doty Ranch couldn’t escape the coastal fog and it was a wet pack-up and cool start. The sun was out by ten though, and I was soon stripping off my long sleeve shirt and jacket. The biggest thing I noticed on the ride today was the change in the hills. Instead of burnt-out grass and scrub bushes, the hills were lushly green with trees, grass, and shrubs.

In Lompoc, I stopped to mail a letter at the UPS store and texted John to reconfirm that Lompoc was the last source of food and drink before we got to Refugio Beach. It was, and they were just a 1/2 mile away, so I joined them and we rode off to finish the last half of the ride. John and Luke must have been distracted because somehow I found myself out in front on the second climb of the day. Didn’t last for long as John caught up, chatted for a few minutes, and then took off. My legs can match them on the flats and flat-ish roads, but not up the hills. Really not the legs so much as the lungs. VOX ain’t what it used to be. The climbs over those hills were the same, though: not very steep, but long. All-in-all, a very pleasant ride. The last 9 miles or so was following the coast with Amtrak’s rails between us and the ocean.

The hiker-biker spots in Refugio are right near the beach and are our first real taste of Southern CA. For the first time in days, there’s not a fog covering all the views, and it’s a bit warmer. We’ll sleep tonight to the sounds of the surf, if the teen birthday parties that are going on next to us ever quite down. Good with the bad, but it’s not that bad (and it did get quiet after 10).