Hwy 1 and curves that never end.

It was quiet and cool when I left Cayucos, a funky little beach town, this morning. The surfer on the left is on a stand up paddle board. The rest of town was as peaceful as this picture. A few people sitting at coffee shops that were open. A far cry from what I got into the middle of easing through San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.
     As I left it wasn't very far up to San Simeon and as I was curving up some more folded real estate I passed a one building town called Harmony. I wondered if that meant when you sang there someone would jump in with a different Part! After Cambria but before San Simeon there are some view points to see Elephant Seals. And there were some on the beach today but I also got a close up of the yellow flowers growing everywhere and so I think it is a mustard plant.  I also took the chance to get a picture looking north up the coast and of the Mothership my great partner in this adventure.            


While all this was nice it just got better from here. A I approached The Big Sur area the began a series of climbs and drops up above the ocean then back down. From Ragged Point to Big Sur proper it was constant shifting then down, bend it over for a tight corner that pick up the bike with the throttle as you accelerate out of the corner. Often shifting clear down to first. Some times you would be back in the forest in shaded areas with eucalyptus trees giving you aroma therapy, meanwhile the flicking from side to side on the motorcycle gave you grin therapy.
       Coming off Big Sur I came down into the the Castroville area, known as the artichoke capital of the world through Monterey by the harbor to get gas. In Santa Cruz I stopped for a quick lunch and then it was back out by the ocean all the way around to Pacifica outside of San Francisco.  Hwy 1       comes into San Francisco and ends up on 19th street straight across to you get on the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was crowded, I came through around 3:30 and it took a while, but once across the bridge you get off a Sausalito  and head off toward the Muir Woods and Pt Reyes and from there for the rest of my day it was curves, curves and more curves. There where two elderly ladies in a small Lexus that would almost come to a stop approaching a marked 15 mph corner then proceed with caution, but after five miles they turned off and once again the fun began. Sometimes along estuaries, sometimes into the folds of the hills and back out. The eucalyptus trees gave way to redwood trees and when you were in the shaded road it was almost dark. The Tail of the Dragon in Tennessee is at the south edge of the Great Smokey Mountains national park. I rode the dragon a couple of years ago and it is famous for having 318 turns in eleven miles. From Pt Reyes to here at Ocean Cove ,where I have paused for the night, it felt just like the Dragon only it went on for forty miles.
      The Inn I found for tonight is an hour or so below Ft Bragg and out here on it's own near a campground. It sits on the uphill side of the road and when you look out your window, you look down past the entrance and across the road to where the land falls into the ocean. A couple of us were sitting out on the deck shortly after I got here and saw whales spouting in the ocean.
           This Inn just appeared as I was thinking I needed to stop. So I turned in and here I am. As they say, "wherever you go, there you are" and so here I am. I think I will make it to Oregon tomorrow but I don't think I will need to rush out of here so I am looking forward to a good nights sleep and an ease into tomorrow.
Will by the Ocean (watching whales!)