Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz. Warmshowers=Warmfuzzies

Our Cottage in Santa Cruz thanks to our warmshowers hosts Ian and Christine

Inside the Cottage. It has a mini bathroom!

Pretty unknown flowers at Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Thats my beach!

Cool really old Pacific Coast bike route sign. If you look close you can see where it said bikecentennial. That is the old name for what is now Adventure cycling.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Same lighthouse

Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz
11/17/09
Day 32 52 miles



This morning we got our usual late-ish start. It wasn't due to laziness though. Our tent was soaked as usual from dew. As Dani dried it out at the camp site I made the 2 mile run into town to work on the blog. After it was updated I went back to camp and Dani had everything packed away and ready to go. We headed out and actually made really great time.

Yesterday, we emailed a member of warmshowers. Warm showers is a cool website that connects people who are willing to host bicycle tourists in their home with traveling cyclists. Many of the members are former bike tourists or avid cyclists. Lucky for us the member responded, and we found ourselves a place to stay in Santa Cruz.

We stopped about ten miles out of Half Moon Bay at San Gregorio State Beach, mostly because I wanted my picture next to my Saint's sign. Luckily the beach was sunny with a slight ocean breeze and had nice picnic tables. We stopped for a snack but we ended up having a huge lunch. We ate a whole box of crackers with chevre cheese and a whole stick of white wine salami (guilty pleasure for us "mostly vegetarians"). With our guts loaded with carbs and saturated fats we headed down the road.

We found a cool lighthouse about ten more miles down the road called Pigeon Point. We stopped to check it out and found that the lighthouse had been owned by the Coast Guard, but they decommissioned it and were going to tear it down. The state bought it for a park and historic site but they don't have the money to restore it, and the lighthouse is in danger of crumbling and falling down. Too bad, it is a really cool building and I don't think that California is going to come up with the money anytime soon.

Between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, there was only one small town. Overall, very rural, but nice riding. We were excited to get into Santa Cruz and see what our first warmshowers experience would be like. Our hosts, Ian and Christine lived only a few blocks off of our route, and we had no problem finding their house. They were both at work but they said we could let ourselves into the back yard. They had a very nice little cottage in the back for us to stay in, much nicer than we ever expected. They also had a great smooth collie dog named Tyler. After we got set up Ian came home and invited us to dinner and then headed out for dog training. We decided to not crash their dinner plans, so we went out to eat instead.

We ate at a great place called Malabar. It was a Sri Lankan restaurant, and it was recommended as an affordable place, but it was a bit pricey. We were glad we ate at Malabar though, the food was amazingly good, and it is always cool to try a different culture's food. We went back to Ian and Christine's and they invited us in for pie and wine! What more could we ask for? We talked to them quite a bit and headed to bed. Our first warmshowers experience was a total success, because our hosts were great. We felt right at home and they went out of their way to make us comfortable. Thanks to Ian and Christine.

Greg