Sep 16: Santa Cruz to Monterey (49.9 miles)

Liz drove me over the hill to Santa Cruzearly in the morning. It was a quiet ride through Santa Cruz, Soquel and Aptos on surface streets following Hwy 1. I think I got every red light along the route.

Noor and I caught up again in Aptos and we cycled around and along farmlands growing strawberries, Brussel Sprouts, lettuce, artichoke and fennel.

Most of today’s trip was on side roads or on a long bike path that leads into Monterey.

At Sand City the trail meets the ocean. Usually there is pretty impressive kite display but today there was only a great view

Noor decided to take a zero in Monterey, which is a great place to do that. She found a hotel downtown and I found a Trader Joe’s to stock up on food. I then pedaled up and up and up to the Hiker-biker site at Veterans Memorial Park.

There were a few campers there when I arrived and as the evening went on more and more arrived. In the morning I counted thirteen tents. That’s the most congested campsite

In the site I met Pierre from France, a retired school teacher, who is biking from the Yukon to Patagonia (like Noor). I also caught up with Matt from Indiana who started there, went east to Washington DC then west to Washington and is biking to San Diego and the on to Texas.

It was a noisy night, lots of comings and goings and people talking late into the night. Earplugs were a must.

None of felt particularly unsafe at the campsite, but we also did not feel it was a place we could leave our items unattended. It’s too bad because others would have liked to take a zero day here and explore the city.