Last night I finally got caught up on my blogs. Unfortunately, right when I was done with yesterday's blog, I went to save it and the tablet glitched. I lost almost the whole thing. This has happened a few times before, but not in a while. Being extremely frustrated, I almost said heck with it and almost went to sleep. But, I've been behind for too long now and I just couldn't let that happen. Writing the blogs is a great way for me to clear my head of everything that happened that day. Once that problem happened and I had to go back and re-write almost the whole day, I had a hard time figuring out what I even wrote. After I calmed down a bit from my frustration, I got it done and was able to go to sleep. This morning we woke up nice and early and had a little breakfast picnic on our tarp again. It was nice that we could see the ocean across the road from where we were. After our yummy breakfast, we hit the road. The first few miles were relatively flat, with only a few rollers. We crossed a couple of bridges, one of which was under construction, and enjoyed the views. The sun came out strong almost right away this morning and warmed it up real fast. About 5 miles into the ride, the climbing started. That's all we did for the next 30 miles. We would climb for a couple miles and then descend for a couple miles. It was a very tiring morning, especially with the sun beating straight down on us as we were climbing. Luckily for us that the scenery is so beautiful because the miles just went by so slowly; it didn't feel like we were getting anywhere. For part of the day yesterday and most of today, I wore an earplug in my left ear to try to drown out the traffic noise a bit. Every once in a while when the traffic is really bad (although it wasn't bad today), my left ear hurts a little. I kept meaning to buy some ear plugs, but always seemed to forget when I went somewhere that sold them. Amazingly, the Hilton Hotel we stayed at with Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Mary Lynn had some in the room- it worked out perfect because now I don't have to buy them! The plug, even though it's a little uncomfortable, really does seem to help. After only 21 miles, we stopped in a little town called Gorda for lunch since it was already lunch time. There was a nice little convenience store with a restaurant next door. When we pulled in, we were excited to see another touring bike. We met James, from the UK who was riding from San Francisco down the Ecuador. This was his first bicycle tour and he seemed to be loving it- what a long ride for a first tour! After talking with him for a little while, we made some lunch. There were some nice picnic tables in a little nook between the two buildings that worked perfect for us. While we enjoyed our mac and cheese, I worked on catching up on our budget log and thought about how hard the rest of the day was going to be if it was anything like this morning. Joey and I also enjoyed an apple and one of our blueberry muffins. I am going to miss Safeway when we get to an area that doesn't have them- just like the Fuggie-o's from Canada. Oh well, we will enjoy having muffins as long as we have Safeway stores. About a mile after we had lunch, we climbed some more. This time we had a pretty long climb, somewhere between 3 and 4 miles. Just when we thought we would be at the top, we would get around a curve and see that it just kept going up and up. Curve after curve we just kept climbing. By that time it had to be in the 80s. Between going so slow up that climb and having the sun beating down on us, the sweat was just rolling off our faces. It was warm and sunny yesterday, but today was definitely warmer! We had an awesome descent and then found ourselves climbing again. For about 12 miles after lunch, that is all we did. What a hilly day! When we got near the county boarder, there was a little resort area that had a restaurant and burger stand. While having a little break, Joey and I decided to get a milkshake. We offered one to Loic, but he is very good with his diet and tries to avoid that kind of thing- he has such great self restraint, much more than I could ever have when it comes to ice cream! What a fantastic treat it was on a hot day like today. From that point, the ride was all downhill or flat. It was amazing. We met a couple brothers, Dan and Kevin who were in the middle of their yearly trip together. They do an unloaded bike ride from San Francisco to I believe LA. They caught up to us after the descent and we were able to keep up with them on the flatish ground. It was nice having someone new to talk to for a while. The last 15 miles went by SO fast. We had a slight tailwind and after climbing all day, we all felt like we were flying. After a little while, the Hurst Castle came into view off on top of one of the hills. We also came to "Elephant Seal point." There were hundreds of elephant seals scattered along the beach just bathing in the sunshine. They were so funny to watch because they would lay their flicking sand on their back with one of their flippers and when they decided they needed to move it took them forever. They would wiggle along on their bellies for about 10 feet and then just laid down as if they were saying "Ok, whew, I need a rest." Then, they would do the same thing again. Over and over until they got to where they wanted to be. The seals looked so chubby and lazy laying on the beach- they were so cute. A few seals were playing in the water just off shore, but the majority were just laying on the beach. While we were there, we met a lady who was from Fairbanks, AK. After talking with her we found out that it was 14 degrees f there right now- yikes!! About 5 miles later, we made it to the entrance for the Hurst Castle. We had recommendations to go there from both Joey's Dad and from Bart (our host from a couple days ago). There was a car waiting to turn out of the entrance, so we stopped to ask them if they knew how much the tour was. They informed us that it wasn't too outrageously priced and that it was about a half a mile to the visitor center. We were so worried that it would be something crazy like 50 or 60 bucks a person, just based on what the Winchester Mansion was like, but it wasn't. It turns out that it is only $25 a person and that includes a 45 minute IMAX video and a 2+ hour tour of the castle (and we're allowed to take photos inside even)! The last tour for this evening was already sold out, so we decided we would camp somewhere close by and come back in the morning for the tour. I am so excited for tomorrow, especially since I was preparing myself all day for the possibility that it would be too expensive and we wouldn't be going to see it. When we started looking for a place to camp near the entrance which was close to Old San Simeon. That little area just had a couple old buildings and a state park, so there was no place to camp. Disappointed, we continued on, figuring we would have to ride all the way into the town of San Simeon to find a place to camp (which was about 5 miles away). We really didn't want to do that because that would mean that we would have an extra 5 miles to do in the morning. As we were riding along, we checked a couple places that might work to camp, however the pickings were very slim since most of the area was just a dry weed filled field with a few bushes here and there. Amazingly, we found a place that would work- and was less than a mile from the entrance! It was a little flat section that was a bit lower than the road and hidden by a patch of bushes-perfect! We were right close to the water so we could listen to thewaves crashing along the beach all night. It was only about 6 when we got here, so we had a short amount of time before the sun went down. Another perfect place to watch the sunset! I worked on making another little bicycle out of wire-still trying to get more efficient at making those, it still takes me forever to get one done. We were still pretty full from having a milkshake, so we just had an apple for dinner. Once the sun was down, the full moon kept it bright enough to make setting our tent up a breeze- and it didn't even get that cold out like it usually does when the sun goes down.I was even able to keep working on my little bicycle under the moonlight for a while. We had a very tough morning today. Thank goodness the last 15 miles were easy! Our miles totaled 51.24 today.
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