Day 15: Fort Bragg, CA to Emeryville, CA
I’m home! After 2,671 miles on the bike, 8 states, 3 time zones, two boxes of stuff mailed back, and 14 nights in hotel rooms, I am typing this from my normal spot on the couch. My cat is nearby, I have a soda from my own fridge… I have not unpacked, not really, but I made a pile of laundry to do tomorrow. After I sleep in my own bed next to my dear wife, that is.
Anyway. I woke up several times this morning, because I forgot to draw the blackout curtains in my room and the window was large and south-facing. Snoozed a bit; I was definitely feeling run down. Probably should have taken another rest day in there after day 7, maybe Boise or Bend in the nice hotels. Got up and told myself ‘One more time’, got everything loaded, found some breakfast and coffee (the method I’ve developed, very clever, is to search ‘breakfast’ in google maps and go to the coffee shop that looks the funkiest). Good coffee, great orange juice, and then I was off to roll down Highway 1.
Remember yesterday, when I got to Fort Bragg, and there was a ton of fog? It was sunny when I left, but the fog quickly closed in. Sometimes it would open up, but for much of the time all I could see was the hundred feet in front of me. Sometimes I would see hints of what would probably be a breath-taking view on a clear day, and a few times the fog did clear enough for me to stop and take some pictures. Not much, and not for long, though.
I stopped just before Sea Ranch for lunch, and the town I was rolling though had a bunch of Taquerias, but the thing that drew me in was a couple guys grilling in the parking lot of the grocery store. I ordered a roasted tri-tip sandwich, put the bike on the center stand, and ate sitting on the seat sideways. A couple of the locals came by and said nice things about the bike, which was nice.
I think I have to do some suspension work on the bike; as it is, it’s not really fit for what I’m doing to it, and it might just be the wrong bike altogether to tour on. It has plenty of power, and has a great spec sheet, but it’s super vibey at higher speeds, which makes it hard to get mileage in. My max mileage for a day was like 280, and the good days were 180-200.
Anyway, immediately after lunch I was cruising through Sea Ranch, which is justly famous and probably worth a day trip by itself. There was a beach access right next to the Sea Ranch Lodge, and the fog had drawn out to sea a bit, so I stopped to walk out and see what I could see. While I was out there, the strangest thing happened. I saw a guy in a Fedex uniform sprinting out towards me. At first I thought he might be security telling me I took the wrong path and needed to leave, but then as I was leaving I saw him again, getting into a fedex van, logo and all. No idea what he was doing sprinting out there in the middle of the afternoon. There wasn’t anyone to deliver anything to, certainly.
Then I got back on the bike and headed south. More fog and three or four places the highway was down to one lane. The second to last one I was at, I was in front, and the lady who was signaling signed ‘Five minutes’ to me, so I turned off my engine and put the bike on the kickstand. A couple cars passed from the other direction, and she said ‘Just waiting on the water buffalo now’ and I said, after a couple seconds of confusion, ‘oh, a piece of equipment. I was in Yellowstone last week and had to wait on a real buffalo’, and we both laughed.
After the last construction, I pulled off at another overlook, took some photos of some nice rocks, and put the reserve gas in my tank, in case I didn’t see gas before I turned off. One of those bottles I’d carried since Minnesota, the other refilled in Oregon, somewhere. Cleaned my face shield one last time, too. Then, not two miles later, there was a gas station, so I actually filled up and got a cold drink. I decided then that I’d had enough fog and wanted to get home an hour earlier, so I re-routed over the hills to Petaluma. Rocked down the 101 and across the Richmond bridge, bailed off the freeway just before 580 merges with 80, and took San Pablo the rest of the way home.
I may have some more conclusory thoughts about this, next week. For now, I’m quite tired. I need to get the pictures from today together and then I’m going to bed.