Today we left Cambria and headed for Guerneville, a little town along the Russian River north of San Francisco. We didn’t make it five minutes out of Cambria before I wanted to stop for photos.
Every part of this drive was beautiful. When we weren’t following the coastline, with its foamy, deep blue water, we were seeing green, sloping hills with trees and vineyards. There are wineries and tasting rooms everywhere. I don’t know how there’s a sober driver anywhere in California.
We made it to a state park near Monterrey, Point Lobos State Reserve, where I’d read you could see lots of sea lions. I figured it would just be a bunch of rocks with sea lions, but I had no idea the view would be as breathtaking as it was. The sea lions were on the rocks below, just lying there sunning themselves. That was fun to see, but the rocks and the water were amazing. Leon said, “I always thought Six Flags could do a better job of making their fake water on the log rides and stuff look real, but it actually is that blue.”
There were some hiking trails, and we wandered down closer to the water to see the sea lions from a little closer. They seem very lazy today.
We could have stood and looked at this all day, but we still had lots of miles to cover. We drove on up into Monterrey Bay, where I’d also read about seeing seals and sea lions. And I was hoping to grab some good seafood for lunch. There were a bunch of restaurants on the Fisherman’s Wharf. Almost everywhere you go here offers clam chowder in a bread bowl, which is what Leon had. It’s delicious!
When I start a sentence with, “I read an article that said…,” Leon knows I’m going to drag him into something he’d rather not do, but he humors me. So we walked another half-mile to where I’d read you could see the sea lions up close. We found them on a boat ramp, piled up and wiggling around on each other, or just lying there like they were dead. I had no idea they made such rude noises! There was one seal swimming around just off the ramp, barking and making a raucous like the one drunk girl at a party who just won’t shut up. We couldn’t tell what he wanted, but he was insistent about it anyway.
This one on the side made me laugh, scratching himself so delicately with his tail.
We left there, rode up to San Francisco and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. A few years ago, when Price and Nathan moved to Seattle, we came across the bridge. I was so excited for Leon to see that and couldn’t wait for us to cross it, because he’s really interested in engineering and always watches the “Build it Bigger” kinds of shows. So I talked about how much he was going to love crossing this bridge and how beautiful it was, and when we finally got there, paid our $16 toll or whatever it was and got to cross it, the fog was so thick that we could barely see about three feet worth of one red beam at a time as we passed it. There was no way we could see the next beam, even, let alone the land on the other side or the water below us. I was so disappointed! So it was nice to be able to see it this time, and on a motorcycle was even better.
We finally made it to our stop for the night around 8:30, absolutely exhausted. Leon did some laundry, for which I was very grateful. We were a couple of miles from any restaurants and did NOT want to get back on the bikes, so we walked to the one convenience store in walking distance and fashioned a dinner out of gas station food. Pork skins and bean dip, a frozen burrito, some trail mix and a Diet Coke. Not the healthiest, but it worked.
I don’t really have any interesting stories today We just rode and looked at pretty stuff, but it was a great day. We’re off to Arcata, California tomorrow.
Live hard and ride easy, friends.
McGeesBeTrippin 