Monday, November 8, 2010

Nov 7, 2010 - Guadalupe Beach

Sunday, after eating breakfast with Andrea, Steven and Gabe, we parted ways with them. Sherri and I stayed in Solvang and just wandered around for a couple of hours. When even Sherri tired of the the wandering we decided to travel north to follow the coastline for a few days. We went up to Occutt, along 101, then cut over to Hwy 1.

Hwy 1 is bit inland around this area. Enjoyable slow drive. We saw a sign for Point Sal, but did not stop--passed it by too quickly. Thinking about it as a place to go in the future. But we did take a left at Guadalupe. We traveled about 4-5 miles to the the beach there. It is a quiet beach--at least on the day we were there. Of course, it was overcast. But the beach itself is clean, the sand is as close to undisirbed as you can get.

We walked along the beach, southward. It was a bit breezy, but good walking. Nobody was anyplace around us until we came back into the parking. The clouds, dunes and hills all were just out there making it a bit of solitude. Go figure? Perfect beach, few people.

So if you pass through Guadalupe, go to their beach. It is actually part of the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes area.

Nov 6, 2010 - Solvang Ride

It is Sunday from Lompoc. Which means that we survived Saturday. You might ask, isn’t this a regular occurrence. Most Saturday’s yes. But yesterday we rode in the Solvang Prelude. This is a bike ride around Solvang.

Andrea and Gabe—Gabe is a friend of Andrea’s—did the metric century, around 63 miles. Steven did the half a a century—50 miles. I did the 25 miler which turned out to be 34 miles. Just completing 34 miles for me in three plus hours was pretty good. I know that is a 10 mile per hour pace. But after close to 30 years of not being on a bike for more than 45 minutes that is pretty good. The scenery is good, rolling hills. It was cloudy with a few minutes of sprinkles. I felt tired, but ok.

Now you might ask, what happened to Sherri? Sherri also rode. But we are not sure what she rode. She started off with me. She managed to get a head of me after a mix-up at a stop light. After that she followed an old street marking and went off into who knows where. She was going with another lady who managed to wipe out on a downhill. Sherri stayed to help her. Then a policeman directed her back onto the course. The course was the 63 mile course, where eventually Andrea and Gabe caught up with her. They rode with her for a couple of miles, then they had her turn around as the terrain got more steep. Sherri did make it back—probably rode more miles than me, but less than Steven.

In the afternoon, we wandered around Solvang, at lunch there, then off to the hotel in Lompoc. This morning we will go back to Solvang and have breakfast. We will split up—Steven going back to Fresno; Andrea and Gabe back to Berkley; and Sherri and I to coast to enjoy a few days.