Muse back!
March 10, 2008 / Monday
Solvang Half Century & Central Coast Trip
Lots to write about from this weekend: sunset creaminess, Hearst Castle amazingness, central coast prettiness, Solvang kitschiness, and my first half century ride. In reverse order. And now, below, in chronological order.
Friday afternoon, we set out to sit in 101 traffic. Getting out of the Bay Area on a Friday sucks! Things cleared up once we got past San Jose, and we cruised on toward Solvang. I realized partway there that we'd be passing by Pea Soup Anderson's. I've been wanting to go to this place for years, mainly because they stick billboards all over I-5 without actually being on the 5. Makes no sense! In any case, they're right at the Solvang exit of 101, so I finally got to eat there. I expected kitsch, and I got it. Oh, and I don't like pea soup.
Onward to Solvang, where we had a reservation at the Viking Motel, run by a Chinese lady who didn't recognize my Viking hat (Aaron made me check in with it on) and charged us a bazillion dollars (event weekend rates, sigh) for what looked to be a sparsely furnished converted studio apartment. I've never been to a more bare bones hotel/motel/shack. And for $189 a night (plus tax), ouch!
Still, it was nice to have a place in town, as we got up the next morning and rode a few blocks to the ride start on our bikes. The ride was really nice; the weather was beautiful and it felt great to be out there. I was a little surprised by the ride demographic; I had expected stronger riders out there, but I found myself passing people left and right. Not that I didn't get passed too, but only by a handful of riders. One of those happened to be a girl, and despite my efforts to keep up with her on a long uphill, she pulled away as we reached the steeper section near the top. Darnit! I hate when someone my size beats me!
Being outridden by another girl aside, I have lots to be pleased about. This was my longest road ride to date, and I finished it with relatively little knee trouble. I felt a bit of an ache around 40 miles in, lasted another not-too-uncomfortable 5 miles, and popped a couple Aleve at 45 miles. I didn't *need* the anti-inflammatories/painkillers right then, but I didn't want to need them when it was too late. Ride stats: 50 miles and 1850 feet of climbing in 3 hours 19 minutes.
We went straight from ride finish to an ice cream shop. A few more blocks and we were back at the Viking Motel, where we staged a Viking hat photo shoot, cleaned up, and headed out to eat our way through town. It felt like a slightly less upscale version of Carmel with a cheesy fake Danish twist. Not cheesy: the tasty aebleskivers from the walk-up window at Solvang Restaurant. Can I have seconds?
Sunday, more Danish pastries (Danish danishes, yum!), then off to explore the Central Coast. Pismo felt like a less grand version of a SoCal surfer town. SLO had awesome gigantic rock formations along Highway 1. Morro Bay had a slightly less awesome but cool because it stuck out of the water rock. We continued on up to San Simeon to visit Hearst Castle, stopping along the way to check out random interesting stretches of shoreline.
I'd expected Hearst Castle to be grand (it's a castle, after all), but wow, this place is beyond grand. I had imagined a castle by the water, not a castle at the top of a set of giant green hills with zebras on its front lawn. We did Tour 2. I want to go back and do the rest.
I know I said I was going in chronological order, but now I have to back up two or three hours. We arrived at Hearst Castle just after 1:30, bought tickets for the 3:00 tour, looked at our phones, and realized the tour was starting in 20 minutes. As it turns out, we had forgotten to Spring Forward and had spent the entire day in my time machine car with the manually set clocks. Just like that, an entire hour of our day disappeared. Poof.
After Hearst Castle, we headed up Highway 1 toward home, stopping for elephant seals (video) and some nice sunset photos along the way. We made it home around 9 PM, totally beat despite the fact that it was really only 8 on our internal clocks. It's okay, I have five days to rest up for next weekend. :)
Full set of pictures here.
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A decent enough action shot to share here, but unfortunately not to buy in hi-res:
Yes, I was totally posing for the cameras.
March 10, 2008 06:22 PM | Road:Trips
Comments
Wow!! You're sunset photos are fabulous. Sounds like a great trip all around, and boo on the Chinese rady!
Posted by: Snarfdog at March 12, 2008 12:27 PM