Pismo Beach, CA

In my younger days, Stewart Lee and I went from Morro Bay to Lompoc as a 1-day segment. San Luis Obispo to Lompoc is less distance, but I am not confident enough to do the 60 miles in one shot. Unfortunately, I can’t break it up into two 30-mile days because there is a 45-mile stretch with no camping or motels between this Oceano Beach and Lompoc. And moreover, there’s this thing called the Harris Grade before Lompoc. I don’t like that word, Grade. So I took a short day today, only 15.7 miles. It was less than an hour and a half of riding.

The meant that I got to have a leisurely morning at Linda’s house, working on this blog. Linda got back from her morning run at 7:15, and made me some breakfast.

HPIM3752s.jpg
Health Nut Bagel, Egg, and fresh squeezed orange juice from their tree!
HPIM3753s.jpg
The house is full of interesting collectibles.
HPIM3755s.jpg
This is their system of de-chlorinating water. The big carafe in the middle is the oldest, and the ones to the right are successively younger, airing out.

At first, I had gone to the Oceano Dunes campsites, but at the gate they told me it was 2 miles over sand to get to the campsites. Camping on sand would have been okay, but access over sand, no thanks. It’s an ATV area, that’s probably why. So I went further down to the Oceano Campground, which was actually in Pismo Beach, not Oceano. $25, since they didn’t have hiker/biker sites. Fine. Nice place.

HPIM3758s.jpg

HPIM3761s.jpg
These were my neighbors, a family from Germany, vacationing in California for 8 weeks. Olivia (mother), Nick (infant), Marta (daughter), and Felix (father).
HPIM3760s.jpg
As I was about to set up, Sammy (born in a taxicab in NY) came over to ask Felix for help setting up a tent. I asked if she could use more helpers, and she said the more the merrier. We got it set up through trial and error.
HPIM3763s.jpg
Sammy’s two traveling companions came back from their errand after a few minutes. David (“Machete” impression), Sammy in the back, Mike Rios (Stan Lee impression). David grew up in Florida, where I hope to reach at the end of this trip. Mike was a veteran, not much older than me. He spoke many languages, and was able to converse freely with Felix in German. He taught me a phrase in Hebrew, but I need to figure out how to spell it (even with Latin characters) in order to share it, here.

I decided to eat my freeze-dried meal again, rather than bother to bike out to a restaurant in town. This has been a good day.

Miles: 15 (estimated, didn’t record)

(Visited 99 times, 1 visit(s) today)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.