Day 28 - Bodega Bay - Lagunitas

Distance - 41 miles

"Nothing compares to brisket for breakfast" is the mantra we take with us as we leave camp this morning. The grocery stores around are tiny and expensive, and the other breakfast joints within 20 miles just didn't have brisket (or anything else) as good as we had last night! So we stop a short two miles down the road and are greeted by the same lovely gentlemen who served us the night before! Today - breakfast brisket burritos. Tomorrow - the world!! Err... San Francisco!

The start of today's ride is rolling hills through farmland, and provides ample opportunity to play Who's cow is it anyway? It has the added bonus of cows on hills near and far, so we really can't keep track of which cows we've already seen.
For some reason the hills today feel relentless. They're rolling and remind us a lot of our days in the Oregon dunes. It doesn't look like we are biking uphill but it sure feels like it!! There are also little spiders and their webs floating through the air that keep landing on us. I've pulled at least seven spiders off me by the time we're ten miles in. I can see the spider webs hanging off of Chris in front of me, and I can see the tiny tickly strands stuck to my oily sunscreeny skin. Doesn't this sound fun? I *guess* every day can't be amazing...

We pop out of the valley and cycle out along Tomales Bay. It's stunning and beautiful and a glorious blue! After conquering two climbs this morning, the ride along the Bay is California 'flat'! It's well known for its oysters, but we are stuffed with brisket, and are on a mission to get to the fresh fruit promised at the 30 mile mark!

The bay goes on forever, and we're trying really hard to appreciate the stunning blue waters... But we're both tired. Every hill gets harder and harder. It's hot outside, and there's now loads of tiny flies and spiders stuck to our sunscreen laden arms and legs.
We finally arrive in Point Reyes. It's a cute little tourist town with lots of shops and creameries selling local cheese and other goodies from the cows in the hills. We are GRUMPY. We've had some rare times on this trip where we haven't been entirely happy - *cough*insanely windy Crescent City *cough* - but today is a tired, hungry, buggy, hot, hilly, day, and it takes our trip grumpy meter up a notch. We've seen so many cows we are becoming them! Mooooooooo.

We get into town and neither of us want to grocery shop. Chris wants pizza but the shop across the street only sells it for 6$ a slice... But we're so hungry we could eat a whole cow (don't tell the cows that, we're surrounded!) No way are we paying 48$ for a whole pizza! So Chris goes into the grocery store in search of something better, but comes out empty handed. I like to think you could make a play out of the scene called "Two angry bikers on a bench". We bicker like  a proper married couple, and eventually find a cafe with pizza. Whole ones, for $15! We roll grumpily down the main street of this quaint little town.

We arrive at Cafe Reyes and have the patio to ourselves, and some exceptionally delicious pizza from a wood-fired oven. Once fed, we laugh our morning off and head out to get proper groceries for the evening.
We wander the town a bit and check out the local creamery - but find ourselves slightly disappointed that we can't find locally made ice cream! We are about to leave town when we see a nice lady with what looks like soft serve, so we ask where she got it. She launches into a speech about how amazing it is and how if you go to Point Reyes you can't leave without it. It's not ice cream, its locally made Buffalo Milk Gelato. It was absolutely delicious! We debate going back in for more, but in our grumpy stupor we've already been in the grocery store 6 times between the two of us.

We are about to head out of town, really this time, when we're stopped by a couple of locals who tell us we're going the wrong direction. Now, we aren't really going the wrong way, there's just multiple ways you can go. We can go 10 miles with 150ft of climbing, or 7 miles with 300ft. The locals tell us to go the 7 mile route.  We decide to do it, because we haven't been tortured enough by hills today! (and we're now fed and happy)

The last couple of miles into camp are on a well maintained paved trail through the trees. It's afternoons like this that make us want to keep riding forever! We set up camp and decide to take our unloaded bikes for a spin down the trail. WHAT IS AN UNLOADED BIKE?! They're so wobbly and weird we can't control them, and the trail is no longer paved so we're navigating gravel and our handlebars are flopping all over the place. We're trying to control our bikes, and ourselves because we're keeling over with laughter. We decide to turn back and bike through the campsite, but this adventure is short lived because HILLS.

We arrive back at camp and greet our friends from the night before, Paul and Dave. We are soon joined by Matt (who we thought was long gone but stopped to play music at a local restaurant and thus is behind schedule) and a couple from Idaho (Malcolm and Hunter). This is now the busiest hiker biker site we've been to since the start. Everyone is super nice and fun, and surprisingly most people we meet out here have at least one degree under their belt.
Paul soon discovers there's a secret free shower, so we all rush to use the hot water before it disappears - which is ridiculous because its only 50 cents for a 5 min shower. We saved 50 cents!!
We laugh about our loud msr dragonfly stoves (THEYRE SO LOUD), share bike stories, and pass around the torture stick so people can roll out their muscles (and laugh and cry).
As we eat dinner, and teach Malcolm and Hunter to play Race for the Galaxy, another 3 bikers arrive.
It's a perfect final evening in the wilderness, surrounded by amazing people all traveling the same route each in slightly different ways with different destinations.
The bike community out here is incredible. Can we please stay out here forever?