Tuesday, May 13, 2008
One of the reasons of going inland away from the coast, instead of hoping to avoid the unrelenting Western headwind along the coast, was to ride the wine valley and Foxen Canyon Road, an unforgettable riding route. It was easy to navigate out of Solvang. It was even easier to see why this area is prized for its cycling and compared to Tuscany. This could be the place to buy a vineyard one day. We pulled off at Fess Parker for an 11am wine tasting — it’s never too early or out of the way apparently. We exited this cycling utopia along warmly aromatic strawberry fields into Santa Maria and the most delicious, oversized, and sweet basket of strawberries on a stand in the middle of a parking lot. $2.25 later, we explored the town: very friendly bike shop and lunch at Jovi of baked spaghetti. We’re back on the road with more Western headwinds to Guadeloup along hwy 1. This was a bad road for riding. We veered off at a golf course and found better roads to Pismo. Aimed for Canyon Road to San Luis Obispo, but it was getting dark and we couldn’t explore this promising town — we had Morro Bay to hit for the night.
This is where it got interesting. The route to Morro Bay along O’Connor Road looked much more promising than the alternate highway. The signs indicated that the road closed at 6pm. It was just past 6. But it seemed worth the effort. Of course the road closed was justified by heavily fortressed military base. Well, after some painful re-navigations, we made it to Morro Shores Inn on Atascadero. Not much doing around here after dark: the Hungry Fisherman was closed, so dinner was chips and beer from the booze shop and veg+pep Dominos.
160km