Sunday, November 7, 2010

Santa Cruz to Monterey

date = 2010-11-04
distance = 65.6

We set out for a short cycle to Monterey where we definitely wanted to
stop and see the town. Yay! Short cycle day followed by a day off.
Somehow these short cycle days don't get us to our destination much
faster. We fill the day with things like a leisurely egg breakfast at
Farm Cafe just miles from New Brighton beach state park. Yum! Another
stop at a grocery store and we were on our way.

The ride was nice and easy but for a bit of a headwind and hot hot sun.
We passed many farms, farm machinery and farmworkers at work, the scent
of strawberries in the air. Some of the machinery covered the fields in
plastic with the seed drills coming along behind them. Fields of
plastic. I hadn't considered such a thing before. I have seen it used
before as a mulch to keep the weeds down but I hadn't considered it on
such a large scale.

The latter part of the ride was on bike paths along busy roads and
through dunes in Marina, Seaside and then Monterey. We stayed at the
Veterans Memorial city park which turned out to be atop a steep hill and
beside the Presidio. Even after such a short riding day we couldn't
face going down the hill to see more of Monterey only to come back up
again. Plus, there were plenty of other cyclists to share stories
with. One fellow from Germany, the aforementioned cyclist going to the
tip of South America having started in Alaska.

Soldiers at the Presidio graced us with a gorgeous rendition of taps on
the bugle and we were off to sleep.

Our day off in Monterey had us enjoy Americanos in the East Village
cafe, a walk through Cannery Row, a visit to the Aquarium, cycling along
a superb bike pathway out to Lover's Point, then back to visit the
Mission, an old adobe structure. One of many that we'll be seeing from
here on in.

No comments:

Post a Comment