Finally, Pacific Ocean!
Saturday, March 25 I made a super early start this morning (at 4:45am!) as I still had some tough climbing and 81 miles to ride, and I REALLY wanted to finish today. It was quite beautiful early morning riding--with just me and the stars. I would turn my bike light off occasionally to admire the stars, but given the mountain environment, I didn't leave it off for too long. I didn't want to ride off the side of a cliff on my last day! Since it was a pretty rural area and the road wasn't a major artery (like Route 90 in Texas), I had the road to myself. I think I saw only 3 cars the first hour or so. It wasn't nearly as eerie as Texas probably because I could see house lights off to the side--and sand and mist weren't blowing around. I listened carefully when dogs barked to make sure the sound didn't come closer. It's bad enough having dogs come at you, but I didn't want to deal with such encounters in the dark! The fact that it was a b...