Day 41: Limekiln State Park to San Simeon State Park

Day 41: Limekiln State Park to San Simeon State Park

Miles: 42

What I rode by: a California condor!, roadside scripture

In a way, today felt like our final day of the trip. That was because, by the end of it, we were back on roads we ride all the time. In a way, this feeling really started for me near the Oregon-California border. The vegetation began to change from Pacific Northwest coniferous rainforest to the chaparral and coastal scrub biomes with which I’m familiar (i.e., like the native plants in my front yard).

Anyway, today we rode through the southern half of Big Sur, which was just as spectacular as the first. It’s been one of my favorite sections of our trip. Our maps have elevation profiles of our route, and Big Sur stands out on it as a hilly place. Today, you could pretty much count down the number of climbs remaining for the entire trip because once south of Big Sur, the road turns flat (relatively speaking). I remember savoring our last climb and the descent even more.

That was where we met a curious woman. She was in a small pullout, next to a shopping cart full of stuff, and surrounded by more stuff. A sign hung on the shopping cart, “roadside scripture”. That’s what she was doing. If any of you are looking for some roadside scripture, you can find her with a smile, in the saddle of the southernmost climb of Big Sur.

Our friends and neighbors, Mack, Joan, and Clay, met us at the campground and brought us dinner and firewood! We shared it with the fellow touring cyclists who congratulated us on finishing our trip.

Breakfast in Big Sur.

We had been following these signs for weeks.