Day 37 – 42 miles

Having gone to bed late following the day to end all days yesterday I was in no hurry to get out of the tent. Beth was hyping everybody up by telling us we only had 40 miles to ride today. I had my doubts I'd even be able to stand but on testing my legs I found everything still seemed to work.

Over breakfast we got chatting to our neighbour, a old retired guy who now spent all his time touring on his bike. It's nice to think this is something you can do pretty much until the day you die if you so desire.

Once on the road it was just a mile before we reached Bodega Bay. I was quite excited to see this little town as it was the setting for Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds. I was slightly disappointed not to recognise it at all despite having seen the film about 10 times. Perhaps they filmed it somewhere else, perhaps it's changed a lot in the last 50 years, I'm not sure. I was distracted from my disappointment for a while as I saw a vulture tucking into a skunk on the side of the road. It's good to see some predatory bird activity still going on in Bodega Bay. This was fun to watch for a while and it made me feel a little better about some of the things I've been eating in the evenings.

Kate and I pedalled on for another few miles before joining Beth and Brian for an amazing second breakfast. It was at a small cafe run by a Mexican couple. I'd never had Mexican food for breakfast so was keen to try. I had hash browns, eggs, tacos and salsa. It was delicious and made me excited again about going to Mexico.

The ride today was fantastic, a great contrast to yesterday's lengthy slog. The sky was blue, the roads were quiet and scenery spectacular and quite different. We'd travelled inland and were moving through wonderful rolling hills made up of dry, dusty farmland with ramshackle barns dotted about the place.

Later the ride returned to the water and we moved alongside Tomales Bay, a large inlet of water separated from the ocean by the San Andreas Fault. Large eagles and vultures soared above and in a few places large cacti grew at the side of the road. It's great to see these clear signs that I'm moving south.

It's worth returning to the subject of roadkill briefly. As I've moved south the roadkill has become bigger, more common and often quite grizzly. Every few miles I become aware of a strong smell of decomposing flesh, this is usually followed by a sighting of a large mangled mammal of some kind. On the occasions when I don't notice the carcass, I can usually rely on Kate to point at something at the side of the road. This forces me to look at something that will cause me to gag and Kate to laugh at me.

After what seemed like a very short ride of 40 miles we set up camp in a circle of redwoods in Samual P. Taylor State Park. Tonight would be Kate's last night camping before she reaches her final destination of San Francisco tomorrow. We were all looking forward to riding over the Golden Gate Bridge into the city.

As we made dinner we began the now nightly ritual of fighting off the raccoons. The further south I go, the more cheeky, greedy and fat they become.