Pacific Coast Tour – Day 48 – 50; San Simeon to Carpinteria – The Start to Warmer Weather

Day: 48
September 3, 2021

Distance: 64 miles (1861 total)
San Simeon to Oceano

Wow. This morning went by in a blur. Because we were going so fast. There was one minor climb, then all downhill and glorious flats. The landscape was mostly “old western” hills reminding us that we’re squarely in inland California.

Midmorning, so just in time for second breakfast, we made it to the town of Cayucos- a cute little beach town that happens to be home of the Brown Butter Cookie Company. Naturally we bought their tower of cookies. To pair with our cookies, we also bought some nectarines from the farmers market across the street. You know, natural sugars to go with our sugary sugars.

We hopped off the 1 shortly after passing Morro Bay and began heading inland toward San Luis Obispo. We went through some changing scenery, passing the bay, some sloughs, and then more of those desert-y hills most of which we were able to enjoy away from traffic.

We enjoyed a major tailwind into San Luis Obispo. After a quick lunch at a random park (where we were able to find tables, shade, bathrooms, AND water) we were off again.

We were running low on fuel again. Since Walmart seems to be the only place that reliably sells it in smaller than gallon containers we had to go there when we got to Grover Beach. Inconveniently, the Walmart was way up on a hill on the north east side of town. It wasn’t out of the way per se, we just didn’t get to ride in the trendy beachy areas as much as we would have liked and instead had to stick to bike lane frontage roads.

The campground of choice for the night would have been Pismo Beach, but apparently they removed their hiker biker sites. The ACA maps also mentioned an RV park and a “cyclist only camping” with a contact name and a phone number. We sprung for the latter option, called the number up in the morning, and in the evening were treated to an outdoor oasis. We’re still camping, but the site is set up for AirBnB-ers to have a little outdoor retreat, and we get access to the bathhouse and outdoor shower. The whole area was super cute, and way better than any RV park would have been. For the win!

Day: 49
September 4, 2021

Distance: 70 miles (1931 total)
Oceano to Refugio State Beach

We had a relatively hard day ahead of us to the next campground in terms of both distance and elevation gain. Luckily, our campsite host, Laura, gave us the local tip of avoiding Lompoc, and therefore avoiding some major climbs! Thanks to her we shaved 400 ft of climbing off our day, and the climbing was more conveniently paced for our riding style as well.

Before deviating from the ACA route, we had a foggy morning through croplands. I’ve really enjoyed trying to guess at what the various crops are. Today we passed lots of mystery greens, and some definitely celery plants. We even passed something that smelled suspiciously of cinnamon-it was delicious!

We cut over from the 1 to our old friend the 101 via the city of Orcutt. We stopped at the store for protein shakes, berries, and lunch fixings for later.

Riding on the 101 was pretty easy with the super wide shoulders. It was unfortunately very exposed to the sun. Considering the desert-y atmosphere we were doing pretty good. We enjoyed some sandwiches outside Los Alamos, which was a surprisingly cute town. We grabbed a sports drink and did another chunk of riding in the sun before breaking in Buellton. We didn’t stop for their famous pea soup, but we did enjoy a shady bench and some sodas. We forced down some power bars and carried on to tackle our last major hill of the day.

The last mountain pass was really pretty. It took a lot of effort to get to the top, but we were very happy to enjoy that sweet sweet downhill. The downhill even put us in good enough spirits to carry on an extra 10 miles past the first campground. The ocean breeze we had been reunited with didn’t hurt either.

Tonight we’re at Refugio State Beach. And this place screams California as I, an outsider, know it. Our site is on the beach, and when we got here the whole place was hopping. You had the stereotypical beach goers, both in and out of the water, paddle boarders, beach ball throwers, loungers, swimmers, etc. And there was also clusters of bikini + daisy duke clad skate boarders and scooterers. And of course the cruiser bikes.

Day: 50
September 5, 2021

Distance: 38 miles (1969 total)
Refugio State Beach to Carpinteria State Beach

After our two longer days, we were due for a short day. And today we went through Santa Barbara. Being the Psych fans that we are, we were excited to see the city (even though none of the show was actually filmed there).

We had an easy stretch into the outskirts of town followed by a bike path to and through the university. It was nice riding through the UCSB campus (although we were very thankful for the non school hour traffic).

We decided to detour off the ACA route a little and go through Santa Barbara’s main downtown street, State Street, which was conveniently blocked off to cars for the most part. Last night Andrew decided he was craving a veggie burger, so we stopped for lunch at the Habit Burger Grill, a local fast casual chain. It was perfect, cheap, and offered excellent people watching opportunities. Several people gave a double take at our parked tandem as they passed by. There was even some kind of bike group that rode past us.

After lunch we headed to the Stearns Wharf and then followed the bike path out of town. I realize it’s Labor Day weekend with lovely weather, but damn it was crowded. We were happy to get away from all the people. (Yikes LA is gonna be hard!)

Our campground for tonight, Carpinteria State Beach, is just outside of town. We’re tucked away further from the ocean, but there was a nice visitors center and a trail to explore. We wandered down the beach to check out some tar pits. But mostly we spent the evening coming up with a game plan for riding through LA and trying to coordinate meet ups with different people.

Oh and a nice man with previous touring experience who is also camping here (regular style camping not hike and bike) bought us a pint of local ice cream! It’s like he knew we hadn’t had our daily favorite treat yet.

We just started using our 5th and final ACA map, so we figured we’d do another summary for the ‘Central California’ portion of the trip….. Did I mention we should only have 5 riding days left?!

Average Daily Budget: $81.20

Central California (Trip Total)

Nights Camping: 7 (35)

Nights with WarmShowers Hosts: 0 (6)

Nights with Family/Friends: 3 (7)

Nights in a hotel: 1 (2)

Whales: 8+ (10+)

Zebras: 2 herds

Food stealing racoons: 2

Lighthouse: 2? (14ish) …okay this is just wild speculation at this point lol

Outlets Used: 3 (16+)

Chain drops: 4 (29) … I think we’re getting better?

Crash: 0 (1)

Showers: Andrew, Angela : 7,6 (26,24)

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