Big Sur to Morrow Bay
Wednesday – Big Sur to Morrow Bay. As I lie awake in bed at 4am I can hear the rain start pounding down outside. No…No…No. not again. I cant look outside, I lay there for 2 more hours wishing it away. Around 6 am it has stopped and the sun is starting to rise. I take a look. Wet but not raining! As the sun rises I see a clear blue sky. Today is going to be epic, I can tell already. Some oatmeal, lots of coffee a clean dry kit and we’re off. Route 1 south all the way to Morrow Bay.
We start with a 5 mile climb that works well to take the cool morning chill off. We are all talking about how glad we are that we didn’t have to do this climb at the end of the ride yesterday. Up we go, warm sun beating down the views are unbelievable, spectacular. This ride will go down as one of my top 5 rides ever. Heading south on 1, the pacific on our right, rolling up and down all the way to Morrow Bay. The red van came by often to give us more water and food as we headed south and the day heated up. There’s not much along this 100 mile stretch with about 5500 feet of climbing other than the natural landscape. We saw hundreds of seals spread over a mile or so of beach that came inland to mate. You could see for miles from the tops of cliffs that weaved down the coast. Rain yesterday? What rain? I already forgot about it. About halfway down the group had split, come together and split again and I was in a group with Mike and his domestique Chris (who’s last name is Italian for Slow Down), Dan, Elliot and John. We put it down and worked really well together for the last 40 miles, hammered it out never looking back.
For the second day in a row all I had consumed after breakfast was enough shot bloks, gu and fig newtons to feed a small village for a week. I needed some real food, something that didn’t come in a plastic pouch. On the way through morrow bay we passed a taquarilla and this time when I asked “taco’s anyone?” Elliot agreed to join me. The plan was to shower, hop back on the bikes a pedal a few miles down the road to the feast. After the shower and on the way out we walked through the lobby to and saw the happy hour buffet. Chicken wings and pizza. Now we had a problem, spin a few miles down the road and get some tacos or belly up to the buffet for wings and a cold beer. The rest of the group hadn’t arrived yet as we pondered our options. Food now won and while looking out over morrow bay I consumed at least 20 wings and a few beers by the time the rest of the group rolled in. We followed that up with a pasta dinner about an hour later where a very large amount of pasta was consumed in a rather short period of time along with some salad and lots of bread. We ate as we watched the sun set over morrow bay. After dinner we moved to the bar for some wine and to share stories and pics from the day’s ride as we waited our turn for our daily massage. When I returned from my massage I found everyone where I left them however most of them were now enjoying burgers and fries! Gil and I returned at the same time and looked at each other “burger?” “oh yea!” 2 more burgers and fries please. Not sure if it was the burger, the wine, the massage or what but I finally had a good night sleep. In bed by 10, woke to the alarm at 6 ready to do it all again.
