Thankfully the hill out of Leggett was gradual and provided nice shade from the sun and had a longish downhill to the coast. As I rolled twisting and turning downhill after the hill climb, the road spits you out right at the ocean at a viewpoint. I saw a black Porsche that passed me a long while ago with his back end crunched in and a young Asian guy and what looked like his mother out examining the damage not looking too thrilled but I saw no other car around.
This is where I met these two older guys who were touring too. They were wild! Probably in their 40s or 50s with a mountain bike and an old road bike. They looked like they might've been homeless and biking south for the warmer weather but they said they were touring and on vacation. They shared some crazy stories of scuba diving around the coast and the dirt road they just rode. We camped with them later that evening near Westport at my favorite campsite yet. It was right on the cliff of the ocean so we watched the sun dip over the seems like endless horizon then were whooshed to sleep by the waves.
The next day was a normal day of riding, nothing too exciting. There was a brewery in Fort Bragg we wanted to have lunch at but it was closed until 4pm and it was noon so we headed towards out of town and came across a Godsend! NEW BEST BUFFET!!! Saw that sign and knew we had to go; Evan and I started chanting, 'lets get dirty!' Over and over as we turned around and parked our bikes on the side of the building.
It was an alright Chinese buffet with some pretty decent sushi for a buffet. We knew it was gonna be bad news bears later but we had to do it. We carried on and somehow I was ahead of them for a bit and the town we were gonna stop at and decide if we wanted to go further or camp there I just kept going since I still was willing to ride further and knew they would keep going too so we met up in a small town called Elk where we stopped at a pub where we hungout a bit then continued on towards Manchester.
There were a couple construction lights to stop one side and let the other side go since it was a one lane road along the way today and there was another one and I could see the other light and across most of the bridge and saw no cars and didn't think it would pickup my bike so I went...only to come head on with a truck, slowly I might add, and he stopped and waved me passed and I foolishly waved and mouthed, 'I'm sorry'.
Blake and Evan got a head of me later and I remember seeing something large and white go across the road and come back to the side and as I got closer I saw Evan with his bike unloaded on the side of the road and a young Hispanic guy. Evan's front tire exploded and he threw his bike and Ina running motion came off the bike safely. The Hispanic guy went and grabbed a couple things of Evans that flew into the other lane so it wouldn't get crushed. He was out watering plants am it scared him. So as Evan proceeded to fix his tube I chatted with this kid. It was tough since his English was basic and my Spanish is basic (Patty would not be pleased with me).
After a half hour we got back on the road and it was dark which isn't the safest on highway 1 but we knew we were 5 miles from the campground so we turned on our lights and started going. After a couple close calls with a few glazed eyed deers on the road we saw Blake biking towards us. We retold what happened and roamed into the campground way later than we wanted to be and still had to setup tents and make food via headlamps. The ground was lumpy and full of holes from gophers so we got some good rest of course. The luxuries of beds, kitchens, and a hot shower have been missed. I'm just in a complaining mood I guess.
Next morning we had only 35 miles to ride to the farm so we headed to Gualala which we can never pronounce correctly and got some meals for later and ate lunch. It was only 15 or so miles away from there and there are two roads that lead there so we took the coast then Annapolis Road which was mainly uphill with some steep grades which we were not expecting to do so it seemed to take a long while to the farm. When we pulled up I was very relieved at how nice it looked and at the amenities.
It is a lovely little farm; I shall update about the farm tomorrow. We will be here for 2 weeks and Blake will take off to San Fran in a handful of days to head back to Idaho. More to come.
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