Day 2: Left Santa Cruz 8:30, arrived Carmel 4:30, energized!
After a crummy breakfast, we left Santa Cruz in a hurry. The hotel was right by the entrance to Hwy 1 S, which we thought was very convenient. Our route took us from SC to SLO entirely by way of Hwy 1, so we figured we were set.
After about 5 minutes on Hwy 1, I told hops that it sure felt more like a freeway than a highway. About 10 minutes later, a CHP heading the opposite direction said through his loudspeaker, "bikes off the freeway!". So I guess I was right. At the time we were about 200 yards south of the last exit, a mile to the next exit. We didn't think it'd be safe to reverse course, so we continued on at a faster pace.
We didn't make it to the exit before the CHP pulled us over. We explained that our route plan took us on 1 and that we thought it was legal for bikes. He said it was legal north of SC and once we hit monterey (monterey county, we would later discover) but where we were, bikes were forbidden. He followed us off the freeway and gave us an alternate route that took us inland to Watsonville.
Once in Watsonville, we tried to ask the local police how to get to monterey by bike. They proved to be entirely worthless, and while hops tried to get in touch with the CHP, i looked on my google maps and deduced which parts of 1 were bikable. hops arrived with the same information that'd i'd gleaned from the map glyphs, and off we went.... to another freeway entrance. we backtracked and found an entrance to the bikable highway 1. In all, we wasted no less than 2 hours in Watsonville. The entrance from Watsonville onto 1 required us to cross two lanes of highway traffic. It was possibly the scariest part of the whole tour but we made it.
We stopped in Moss Landing for lunch, at a place a local recommended: Phil's Fish Market. We easily found a place to park our bikes and sat in a covered outdoor area. The lobster roll was great, but the fish and chips were too greasy and overdone. Might stop there again but would probably try to find a better place.
After Moss Landing, we had to exit 1 again at Marina. By this point we were getting good at telling when we could be on 1 and when we couldn't -- a skill that we'd use again on the last day of our tour. There's a bicycle path that goes from Marina (a town that I didn't know existed) to Monterey. The path is mostly scenic, with lots of plant-covered rolling dunes. It's also meandering and likely added a lot of unplanned miles on to our second day. Once in Monterey, we continued on the path until we met two local roadies and stopped to ask more directions.
They debated the merits of getting to Carmel via 17 mile drive, or the much shorter, more direct route through Iris Canyon. One of them, Dave, volunteered to lead us through Iris Canyon, since his 80 mile ride that day hadn't tired him out. His friend claimed that the route through the hills was a third of the distance of the flat route, and there weren't any climbs more than 10% grade -- Dave said there were 13s, at least.
Dave turned out to be right. The road through the hills was about 2 miles instead of 17, and contained a 15% climb and a 13% -- neither of which turned out to be too bad with our touring gears. It was definitely the right choice after a frustrating day of making our route up as we went along.
We arrived at the Carmel Mission Inn where I nearly panicked when they said they'd never heard of us, and I couldn't find a confirmation number. They looked at the checkin list for that day and found me - my name misspelled. The staff was very hospitable, the room had a really far out decor, it was clean, roomy, and a welcome upgrade from the dumpy place in Santa Cruz -- at the same price! Before dinner, we sat around an outdoor fireplace and traded stories with other guests who shared some wine with us. The hotel is located on the outskirts of Carmel, or, at least, not walking distance from downtown. There's only one option for walking to dinner, the Rio Grill, a locals' bar and grill.
The Rio Grill had very good service, good food, a very good scotch selection, and prices that seemed a little too high. Still, there wasn't any other option.
Our stay included a breakfast buffet, which started at or before 7 -- this would be the last day that we'd get breakfast before 8, much to our chagrin, since we aimed to leave by 8:30 each day.
The breakfast buffet was well done, tasty and way too hearty for day 3's ride.
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