On a side note, the Hearst Castle is not a member of the Warm Showers network.
Fortunately it was a beautiful day and there was a well appreciated tailwind. I spent the previous night's sleep tossing and turning worrying about the coming day's ride, but then had a conversation with a guy prior to setting out that made the ride more enjoyable. This guy, who was camped near the hiker/biker area, commented that he did not think he would be able to do a cross-country ride due to the overall distance. Of course I responded that you can not think about the total distance, but rather think about the individual days. This prompted me to rethink the looming 67 miles. There are few commercial stops in this stretch of road, but upon studying the map I saw where there was a restaurant 25 miles into the ride, then another restaurant/grocery store another 25 miles down (actually up, up and up) the road. So I just focused on getting lunch at the first stop and a couple of cold beers at the second. The final 17 miles were a breeze (strong tail wind) with relatively flat terrain.
So today I will ride to Morro Bay (28 miles or so), then on to San Luis Obispo (17 miles) tomorrow morning. Nice way to finish the ride, especially considering how my legs are feeling.
Now, the inattention to detail I spoke of earlier ... I discovered the other day that Amtrak allows a person to check two pieces of luggage at no extra cost. I had planned to ship my panniers in a 20x20x20 box, costing somewhere around $50. Once I became aware of the "checking of two bags at no cost", I knew I needed to get to San Luis Obispo early on Saturday so I could search thrift shops for old pieces of luggage. In the past I have bought old pieces of luggage from thrift shops for about $5.00 each ... and I will be able to re-use these bags when I fly back to Minneapolis the end of July.
In this case, money ruled over potential body-ache ... and besides, I carry a large quantity of Ibuprofen for just such days.
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