Westport to Bodega Dunes State Park

The gang at Westport (thanks to Laith for the photo).

We started slowly after the food and wine in Westport, but fell into a fast pace before too long. We made good time for about 20 miles until we met another cyclist on the side of the road, along with a local that had joined him for the day. This man was undertaking a tour that dwarfed the four of ours: he had flown from his home in Ireland to Anchorage in May, pedaled north to Prudhoe Bay, then turned back South headed for Patagonia and the southern tip of South America. From there he plans to catch another flight, but rather then go back to Ireland he'll be flying to South Africa and then pedaling home! He's got a great website here: http://www.thebigcycle.com.

With these two new acquaintances we stopped at a pub in Mendocino for a beer and a bite to eat, then pressed on and got to our camp at Manchester Beach just as night fell.

The next day gave some of the best cycling of the entire trip. The scenery was spectacular, the descents were fun, and the weather was fantastic. I'm grateful to Laith for sharing some photos:

A nice place to ride a bike.

Cruisin'

That's Kerry flying down one of the descents. The road had some switch backs that allowed Laith to get this bird's eye view.

Good times on the road.

We rolled into our campsite early that day, so Laith and I headed down to the beach for a swim in the breakers. I played in the waves until I got cold--about ten minutes--then hustled back up the beach to my clothes. The campsite seemed to be a meeting ground for all the cyclists on the road. There were about 15 of us camped out at the hiker biker site. I ran into a Vancouver woman headed to Baja that I'd met on the road way back before I visited the Lost Coast. Brendan (the Irishman) arrived at the campsite too, as well as an Alaskan couple traveling with their nine-month-old baby that I'd heard about through the cycling grapevine the day before. There were other fascinating people too: a married couple that looked to be about 50 on their way to South America, some lone tourists out on long term rambles, a group of women nearly finished with their trip from Vancouver to San Francisco, and one San Francisco guy out for a three day tour on a long weekend.

The youngest cycle tourists I've ever met...and parents too.

In camp, Laith slipped into his now normal role of cooking a gourmet camp meal to share with everyone, and I cooked my usual one pot stew of something green, some sort of grain, some sort of protein, and a healthy dose of olive oil to throw a few more calories to whoever needed them after Laith's meal. We stayed up for awhile hearing stories from all the different tourists...a fitting final camp to my cycle tour.