Santa Barbara

It’s Saturday morning – the sun is shining once again – we’ve been so blessed with great weather and give thanks for that each day.  It’s going to be a long day today – a century ride so it would be an early start.  Two flats were fixed yet yesterday afternoon – thorns on the road – not a favourite with cyclists. 

After a so called tail gate breakfast, the cyclists are ready to roll, eager to get to their destination in Santa Barbara for the weekend.  The area we are passing through is prime market garden – salad bowl territory again and we can smell it.  Just before the first scheduled coffee stop we come across 2 of our cyclists changing a flat – and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the 2 guys who have rib injuries – almost like the blind leading the blind.  We, 3 ladies, stood by helpless feeling bad…..even though I have done it once before, I wouldn’t know how to do so now….

Forgot to mention the day we left Big Sur of our tanking up experience – others we had been talking to had told us of how expensive the gas was on the stretch of Hwy 1 that we would be taking – a whopping $5.59 a gallon.   We needed to buy some and  we put in enough to get us to civilization where it was $4.49 a gallon.  They see the tourists coming…..  oh well, we are helping to keep the economy going here.

We continue to pass through acres of crops – many being harvested as I write this.  A golf course in the middle of the vegetable fields  seems a bit ironic – I’m thinking that the migrant workers out in the fields aren’t using the golf course…

Horses and beef cattle, many with young, are grazing in the brown fields with the mountains in the back ground.  This turns out to be the most interesting drive/cycle for us – we became gleaners in a cauliflower field where Crus and Roberto gave us some fresh cauliflowers for supper or lunch tomorrow.  Right around the bend we saw white tarps over crops – these turned out to be raspberries which were being harvested.

The cyclists were promised a climb before lunch at Lompoc – the road they were to take would give them over 600 feet of elevation in the first three miles as the narrow, twisting road climbs over a small band of hills, reaching an elevation of 950 feet.  At the top we could all enjoy the views across the open farmlands before the brisk down hill.  Before you know it, you are in town with all the facilities – right out of town you are back into the mountains and the beginning of a 13.5 rolling climb to an elevation of 900 feet.

Today is also the day we are passing the 2,000 kilometer mark on the total trip….at coffee break the cyclists shed all the extra clothes they started off with this morning.  The temperature is climbing quickly – we found that out when we had to wait for AAA to rescue us once again – van wouldn’t  start and those who stopped to help did not have jumper cables with them and neither did we.  A few hours later we have a new battery and have arrived at our destination.

In the flat department we were not so fortunate – there is a lot of debris along the roads and we found that out. Total flats today was 3....total miles cycled 164 kilometers - every cyclist did the total ride and arrived hot and tired just after 5:00 p.m.  We are at the Santa Barbara Tourist Hostel - it looks very nice on the web - we're just a tad disappointed but what can you do....

Road closed, detour ahead – doesn’t mean that according to our cyclists….this photo proves that….