This was an oopsie day. Really should have done our research before taking it super easy...I guess by Day 7 we were getting too comfortable with our ride schedule.
We set off early enough thanks to peanut butter and oatmeal fuel.
Half an hour into the ride we hit Point Arena and I fell in love. We rolled down the hill into the little town shrouded by morning fog. Such a cute town; yoga studios, community billboards with quirky events and a super awesome whole foods grocery store and cafe. For real this place is awesome. We stopped for way too long to get a caffeine and wifi fix. Then I found these peanut butter ginger chews. The guy at the counter thought I was crazy because I bought handfuls of them. They were the most delicious sugar fix I could fathom. Anyway, Point Area, worth checking out.
We kept on riding. Maybe it was Day 7 fatigue or the lack of sleep from the crumby karaoke from the night before, but I was tired. Not a good day to be tired.
I then stumbled onto a grocery store and figured I should buy lunch. I got a bunch of picnicky things while Judi kept cycling like a champ. Sarah and I found a picnic table and slowly ate some crazy delicious corn chips and sipped on coconut water. I didn't want to keep on, but we managed.
Here's where the oopsie happened. Turns out the next part of the ride is ALL UPHILL along the ridge of a fantastical mountain. This was the most beautiful and most strenuous part of the whole trip. It was gorgeous. The light was golden as we rode up and up. The fog was rolling in below, covering the Pacific like a sheet, tucking it into bed for the night. The minutes were ticking and the sun was setting, casting the most delicious hue of orange I've ever seen.
Finally we descended into a valley behind the mountain and that's when things started getting decidedly dusky.
We were supposed to be meeting Sarah's parents that night at the Bodega Bay campsite so they could take us out for dinner. We were still ten miles away and it was pitch black by the time we hit the town of Jenner. The only thing in Jenner is a fancy pants restaurant with a parking lot that became Sarah and my changing room. We were exhausted. We were famished. We were done.
Sarah's delightful parents graciously drove all the way out to the fancy restaurant to meet us, even though it was late and they had to work the next day! So wonderful of them.
After some drinks at the bar we settled into a table where I proceeded to eat my body weight in bread and butter and a little plate of pasta and some fish. We had to apologize to the staff about our grubby appearance and our (my) ravenous appetite.
We then had to face the facts. It was night time and we were ten miles out of our destination for the day = we had no where to sleep. This is where things got interesting. Desperation (or liquid courage) prompted me to ask the attractive bartender if he wouldn't mind letting us crash in his backyard. This, as you can imagine, was not going to fly. Instead, Sarah's ultra supportive father loaded our bikes into his car and took five miles to the Sonoma Coast State Park which was completely full (it was crab season, y'all). We ended up camping on the edge of the campsite and had a not so decent sleep. It was loud and I was too full of bread.
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