Day 4 – What a day!

What a day! You would have thought that after 9 weeks of all 5 of us riding we would have dealt with almost every possible scenario. But, we were never faced with illness or injury…until today. When I woke up at 8:30 (after 12 hours of sleep!) to see Brian still sound asleep, I knew he must not have been feeling better. He managed to get up and get ready to go, but was still not feeling up to riding. Zach and I went to work fixing my broken spoke, something we haven’t done in a while (Jake, we really could have used your help). By the time we were finally ready to go it was 10 O’clock, and we headed into town for breakfast at a local diner. Despite ordering just a single egg and toast, Dad was unable to stomach any breakfast, or even watch Zach and I eat ours. We contemplated renting him a car while Zach and I continued on to meet up with him later, but in the end he decided to give biking a try. We took things slow and headed out of Santa Cruz before finding out way back to highway 1. A fairly easy ride through strawberry fields and country roads brought us to a late lunch on the water. By this time dad was feeling better, and his appetite was improving (we are attributing this sickness to dehydration). We enjoyed our lunch in the sun before heading back out to meet up with a bike trail. We rode this trail for the rest of the day, through small towns, along the coastline, and through sand dunes before calling it quits in Seaside, CA at the Holiday Inn. Though feeling much better, dad was still fading fast and was ready to call it a day. We caught the end of a disappointing Hab’s game before walking next door to dinner at Chili’s. Just before dinner, we arranged to meet up with Stuart (who we met last summer on our cross-country trip when he and his wife Caren were heading east). Unfortunately, our plans were so last minute and Caren was unable to join us – Next time! He met us at dinner and then took us for dessert and a tour of Monterey. Thanks so much!! This was most certainly the highlight of our day and we really enjoyed catching up and trading stories from the remainder of our trips. We wish you guys the best of luck next summer when you complete your trip! Having completed another short day, we are hoping to spend some time here in Monterey tomorrow, riding and seeing a little bit of the area, before renting a car and driving some of the coast to ensure we make it to Santa Barbara on Friday. It is nice to really be able to enjoy some of the places we visit on this trip; something we didn’t get to do a lot of last summer. Though the day certainly started off a little slow and we were not optimistic about our progress, it certainly ended on a much happier note. It’s been a long day so we are off to bed, ready to enjoy some vacation time tomorrow!

(Maggie)

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