…C’EST LE ROI DU SOLEIL.
Day 33 – San Simeon State Beach – 58 km
From the ridiculous to the sublime. Today was glorious. Sunny, warm and with a steady wind blowing at our backs.
As we started out from our motel this morning we saw a group of road cyclists (no baggage on board) gathered at a food station set up across the road. They were part of a charity ride in support of athletes with disabilities and are cycling from San Francisco to San Diego. We spent the day mingling with various groups of these riders on the road, and prided ourselves on keeping pace with many of them – even with the significant difference in the weight we’re pushing. We also saw Adam, a cyclist from North Van whose riding from San Fransisco to Palm Springs. Adam is camping his way down, but is travelling super light (change of clothes, sleeping bag, tent) and riding a carbon fibre road bike. We first met him in Big Sur on the day of the big rain, however while we dried out in our motel Adam camped a second night in the downpour. He didn’t look any worse for it today. He was pretty cheerful during our brief exchange this morning on the road before turning on the afterburners and rocketing into the distance.
Earlier I called Big Sur a tourist trap, but it has nothing on the San Simeon strip. This crass “resort community” consists of roads parallelling the highway on both sides with nothing but hotels and their restaurants. The only store was a pathetic Mini Mart selling mostly junk food and beach toys. There were probably 20 hotels along this strip, but virtually nothing else. And in mid-October it was like a ghost town.
