Bike Tour in the USA (2007), Part 29

Tuesday, Sep. 19, 2007

Intimate Big Sur

Los Padres National Forest →Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park

Distance: 84.14 km, Time: 6:04:24 hrs, Total: 938.44 km

   When I woke up in the morning the whole campground was blanketed with a thick waft of mist from the ocean during the night. 
   My tent was not only one the outside but more surprisingly on the inside (!) very wet, the same was the grass on which it stood and surrounding us. To wipe it off with a cloth I carried it completely on the road. While I was busy a pick up stopped right beside of me. In it sat the host of the campground and yelled to me with a boozy breath if I was sleeping on the road. My father was a drunkard therefore I hate them… Watching my eyes he pulled himself back onto his seat and answered his own question “obviously not!” and drove away.
   A female camper watching the whole scene comforted me with the kind words: “Don’t take it to your heart!” I answered with a smile: “I don’t let a drunkard disturb my day, thanks for your concern!”

   In the early morning my friend Tim already left the campground. Some readers might wonder why all my acquaintances just move on without leaving a word; actually I am asking myself the same question. It is a phenomena of this time that people do not much care about others so why should someone change himself or herself during a bike tour? The current US president is a pinnacle on how to separate people, how to play them for your own use, how to let your ego rule your own world...
   I personally try to brake out of this mold which is not that easy. I still see travel and my life in general as a way to meet new people, new environments and new countries and learn from it. I can not be responsible for others but, as Michael Jackson wrote in the song ‘Man in the Mirror‘,

“If you want to make the world a better place, 

take a look at yourself, and then make a change.”

   I was not in a hurry, at around 9:30 am I was riding on Highway 1. The road welcomed me with a strong headwind, together with the rising road it took a real effort to move at an acceptable speed…

   I came to the town of Lucia, a small settlement with restaurants and motels and a gas station directly beside the main road. I stopped there and went in for a breakfast with a good cup of coffee.

   While I enjoyed the breakfast beside the road I noticed some wet flowers covered with morning dew. I thought this was a nice motive and knelt down to take a picture of this natural arrangement. As I was busy with my camera a car stopped beside of me. The driver got off and took the same photo.
   For me this is a good opportunity to make new acquaintances. The driver was a pensioned farmer from Wales. He and his wife, his sister and her husband rented a car and wanted to discover the USA.

   He looked very young therefore I had inevitably to inquire about the retirement system in his home works. He told me that in Wales farmers can retire at the age of 55 (!). Because he owns the house they are living in the pension is enough for him. Compared this to my Taiwanese brother-in-law, a pig farmer, who has to work until 65 and gets only around US$180.00 pension per month. Fair?
   This ex-farmer joined an international housing exchange program in which the members exchange their apartments or houses, his partner is living in his house in Wales while he is living in his home in the US. I think this is a great system which gives everyone the opportunity to learn other countries and people for relatively few money.

   He told me about a Swedish biker laying hurt beside the road. No American driver wanted to stop for help so the biker wrote the emergency number 911 on a white paper. He, the tourist, stopped and called the EMT which sent him to a nearby hospital.

   We had a great conversation and I bid each and everyone of our group farewell...

(to be continued...)

Bike Tour in the USA (2007), Part 28

Tuesday, Sep. 18, 2007

The Silence of Nature

San Simeon State Park → Los Padres National Forest

Distance: 71.33 km, Time: 5:26.02 hrs, Total: 854.30 km

   

   I continued my ride on a breathtaking but not too difficult road and reached Gorda which developed for a former stagecoach station (1878) into a small resort with picturesque white clean houses.

   Gorda is derived from the Spanish word for "fat" or "well-fed", which might be indicating the ‘rich’ background of this very small town. The natural center of the town is the, for Americans, important credit card (without any further service) gas station. As of April 26, 2008, Gorda had the highest gasoline prices in the United States at $6.70 per gallon. Part of this cost goes to subsidize the 100 gallon per day Diesel generator fuel bill for the town. Although as a biker I did not have to 'gas up' I had to take a picture.

Gorda

   In May, 2017, a massive landslide took place just south of Gorda, severing Highway 1; the world famous coastal route for through traffic between northern and southern California was closed. This had a considerable negative economic impact for tourism between Monterey and Morro Bay (wikipedia).

   For the first time I discovered a street sign indicating the distance to San Francisco: 298 km (for tourists!). To some readers this might be a little far way but when you considers the distance I already covered it is only a short ride away…And when every day offers different experiences and impressions the days went by in a short moment's notice. Come on!

   The coast gets wilder and the mountains higher but the road was still not too much to ride. I believe there are too many tourists who want to discover the Big Sur between the centers of Los Angeles and San Francisco so the government would not design roads too demanding. 
   At around 4:00 pm I reached the Federal Campground as part of the Los Padres National Forest and registered at the entrance. Rolling down a hill to the Biker & Hiker I heard someone calling my name 'Gerhard' and, of course, I stopped. It was my American friend from the Carpinteria campground who introduced me to his egg-shaped camp trailer. It was a nice 'accident' to find someone I knew in this wilderness. During our nice conversation a couple from Baden (Germany), joined us. Sometimes we exchanged some German words, I did not use my mother tongue for many years...I still had not put up my tent and was afraid someone was faster than me so I had to leave our small group. 

   Indeed, shortly after my arrival at the Hiker & Bike the place was already busily occupied with more than the mandatory 10 bikers with more still rolling in. As I wanted to move to a bench an American woman shouted angrily that 'the place is occupied'. As an innocent bystander I just put my tent in some high grass which will offer me a cushion for the night.

   I met a group of three bikers travelling with carbon racing bikes and a trailer, as a contrast there was a young couple with old steel bikes who did not even carry a tent but spent the night on an air mattress. My direct neighbors was a couple made of a Malayan overseas Chinese husband and his European wife. The husband told me that both took the same bike trip some 20 years ago and said that nothing changed here on this campground. Even drinking water is still not available. They lend me their youth hostel guide from with I wrote down an address of a hostel in Monterey into my notebook.

   In the meantime there arrived 20 persons at the Hiker & Biker, most of them in groups. The advantage of a group is obviously that you can travel together but I found out that travel with companions let them stick so close together that it is nearly impossible to find friends outside of this group. 

   Not far away I saw a lonesome bike sitting apart from the rest of the bikers. I went to him and we talked. He introduced himself as Tim who travels long distance on his bike, this time from the north to south. I gave him some ideas about European bike travels; there is EuroVelo, the European cycle network (http://www.eurovelo.org). Many different routes have different themes, for example EuroVelo 15 is designed "from the source of the Rhine to its mouth in the North sea". We talked until 10.00 pm, after this time I went sleepy into my tent.
  The waves of the ocean sang a sweet lullaby until I went into a very comfortable dreamland. 

(to be continued)