It turns out to be a lovely day in Pismo Beach, which purports to be a “Classic Californian Beach Town”. Our cheapo motel (Motel 6, so called because all the rooms used to be $6: dream on these days) is separated from Pismo by the largest RV park I’ve ever seen. This is only a small part of it.
It has a pier and lots of surfers, as well as tons of wildlife: we see dolphins, shark and pelicans from the pier.
That evening, we head into town to have a meal at Guiseppe’s, a lovely Italian restaurant, recommended by a friend of Diane’s.
After the meal, we walk down to the pier again and watch the sunset and the surfers.
While there, we realize we’re only a couple of weeks away from Mexico. It seems odd that we’ll be at the border in two weeks, and our journey will be over. We’ve got tons of stuff to organize when we get back, so I’ve had to buy a little notebook to start trying to get my life in order in advance. It’s a bit of a change from just getting up, riding, eating, sleeping.
The next morning, we’re off to Lompoc (Lom-poke), where we’re booked into another Motel 6. California is pretty much skint, and so they’ve been closing state parks, or bits thereof. We use their hiker-biker sites, as they are cheap ($5 each per night), and also cannot be reserved, so you can walk into them and be more or less guaranteed a place. Unfortunately, these are being closed to save cash, and the one in Lompoc closed some while ago. Hey ho.
Cold on the coast again, but soon we’re heading inland to avoid Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is bloomin’ huge. We’re back in farming country. Here’s Diane zipping along next to a strawberry field.
This is a very Spanish area of California, and we soon pass through Guadelupe. Here, all the shops have signs in Spanish, and the whole place could actually be in South America. We pass a big mural showing where Guadalupe actually is.
It’s apparently 301 miles to San Diego.
They have to irrigate everything heavily here.
After stopping for lunch in Orcutt, we leave the farmlands and take Harris Grade Road, which climbs 900ft in a couple of miles. After a hot, fly-bothered climb, we arrive at the top, from which we can see Lompoc. It’s still foggy over on the coast by the looks of it. Look, I can see a KFC from here !
Anyway, as someone has pointed out, it’s downhill from here. This seems to have been written by an accompanied tour group called The 3 Amigos, who have been leaving helpful things written on the road for about 10 miles or so (Watch out for cars ! Choo Choo !)
And then we’re in Lompoc. I give the bikes a wipe over, and then we shower and have a Thai meal for a change. Back to the coast (and the tent) tomorrow.
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