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July 29, 2017
Cambria, San Simeon, Ragged Point, & Cayucos
In the morning, I wake up , and I don't know what to do with myself. But I figure, I'll get up and ride my bike somewhere. The plan is to get on CA-1, and go north until they stop me. The road is washed out in multiple places. But, I figure I'll go as far as I can, then turn back.
So, I ride north to Morrow Bay. Now, I decide to try to get out onto that little peninsula. So, I drive in that general direction, and I do end up in a little town called Los Osos. I get pretty close to the peninsula, when my gas light comes on. So, I turn back, and gas up in Los Osos.
I'm not sure what to do, so I figured I'll ride up to Cambria and have lunch there.
So, I roll North towards Cambria.
Now, Cambria is where I spent the night when my Honda XR left me stranded on the side of the road.
So, I'm heading back to Cambria. And, loosely, I have some idea of when that happened, because I bought my KTM to replace the Honda XR as a touring bike, essentially.
So now, I'm on the KTM, and I roll into Cambria. It's a quaint little town off of CA-1. Back in the day, it was all word of mouth. But now, it's all TripAdvisor.com. So now, all of the secrets are out, of course. What was off the beaten path, is suddenly well trodden these days, it seems.
I loop through town a few times. I find the restaurant I ate it. It's an Italian place named Lombardi's.
I think that the bar I closed down on that trip is Mozzi's.
I'm trying to remember how that trip ended up. I remember that I caught a bus from Cambria to somewhere, hopped on the Amtrak, and now I'm wondering where the Amtrak station was. I search my website, and lo and behold, it was in SLO Town.
Now, I see where the train station is in SLO-town. I'd completely forgotten about that. So, when I get back to SLO, I'll have to chase down the Amtrak station.
Now, I'm not sure what to do. Like, the only sensible thing to do seems to be to keep going up the coast until someone stops me. The woman at the gas station in Cambria says that I can go north, past Ragged Point, and then, the road is blocked and I have to turn around and come back.
So, I'm like "good enough". And I roll North.
At Sam Simeon, I stop to see what the deal is with Hearst Castle. But, you can't drive up to it. There's a parking lot at the bottome of the hill and they shuttle you up in buses. All you can see of the castle is a dot.
So I roll north. At Ragged Point, is where the road really gets interesting. A lot of the road south of here is 4 lanes (instead of 2), and it goes through rolling hills, instead of following the coast. But now....now we're down to 2 lanes....spine-tingling curves and a 5 hundred foot drop into the ocean if you mess up.
Now, it's really a dreamy ride, and I turn on my GoPro to catch some of the action.
But, the road doesn't go far like this, before I come to a woman with the road blocked off. She turns me back. You can't go any further north, due to a massive slide (Mud Creek Slide) that erased the road, essentially. It won't be fixed for at least a year.
So, I turn back. I mean...it is what it is...I'd like to keep going. This part of the road is just an adrenaline junkie's dream.
But we have to go back now. We have to return to Pismo.
All along this trip, I've seen hotels with vacany signs. But when I looked online, it looked like everything was all booked up. But every hotel said vacancy.
So, I should not have booked the room in advance. I screwed up. I should have just winged it. Oh well.
I stop at Ragged Point on the way back for an ice cream shake. Some dude is playing the guitar. I buy a sticker for my bike that says Big Sur.
Now, I'm rolling south again. When I get back to SLO, I go straight to the train station, and sure enough....there's my train station, and the restaurant that I ate at. Hilarious. I'd totally forgotten about that.
Then, I go to McClintock's for dinner. I want to see what everyone is standing in line for every farmer's market. It's on Broad and Higuera street. Some guys are in a car, parked, and a dude hits it and takes off. They chase after him, and catch him. But the cops don't write him a ticket for fleeing the scene, even though they should have. THey exchange insurance is all. Now, I'm exhausted, and I think it's time to go back to the hotel.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 29, 2017 at 6:38 PM
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