WEST COAST TOUR SEP 2010

Santa Cruz to Carmel by the Sea

65 miles

Sep 25, 2010

Our last day. In some ways were are relieved as we are all tired, but in others we wish the tour would go all the way to San Diego. We had a nice day and not too much climbing until the Monterey peninsula. One of the amazing sights were the incredible "truck" farms as we called them. We saw artichokes, brussel sprouts, cauliflowers, straw berries, several kinds of lettuce and probably others we didn't recognize.

Picking straw berries. Appeared to be at least hundreds of

acres of them

Cauliflowers by the thousands. All looked ready to pick to me

A local we talked to, said these types of fields went at least

75 miles further south than where we were

The gang, plus a visitor, Paula, on the left who was

a rider on the cross country tour in 2008 and on the staff in 2010

Cannery row in Monterey. Great food on the wharf.

Bird rock on the Monterey peninsula

Jim and Pebble Beach

The Lone Cypress on pebble beach Supposedly over 250 years old

One of the unusual houses in Carmel. Carmel was a

disappointment to us. It was totally over run with

tourists including us. We finally loaded up in someones

driveway and drove back up to Sea Side tired and hungry.

This tour was the hardest work of the seven I have taken since 2006. It was also the most beautiful. I have never seen so many beautiful and wonderful sights in two weeks in my life. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

WEST COAST TOUR SEP 2010

San Francisco to Santa Cruz

86 miles

Sep 24, 2010

This was one of our toughest but gratifying days. We had almost 5,000 ft of climbing, most of it in the first 30-40 miles. Nice day and later in the ride we had a nice tailwind. Getting out of SF and its suburbs had lots of climbing and traffic. SR1 was very challenging with lots of traffic and absent shoulder part of the way early.

A ship coming into SF as we are leaving

Started seeing alot of pampas grass after about 25 miles
on the route

Crop lands started about 30 miles north of Santa Cruz

This field is something I had never seen before. Artichokes

Sorry about the pic quality. I was shooting on the run

trying to keep up with Ron

This camp was strange. It is not a camp ground and the

cars were parked on the road shoulder. Big sign said

"Keep out"

WEST COAST TOUR SEP 2010

San Francisco

Rest Day

Sep 23, 2010

Sandy came out from Denver for two days. We first

came to SF 44 years ago. We finally took a tour of the

city. I was always in meetings on our previous visits.

Tom (aka Mr Tour Director) out at the beach in west SF

Yep, Alcatraz. My dad (born in 1897) and a marine in
WWI, voluntered in WWII and trained death row and life
prisoners from the Federal Prisons like Alcatraz. He gave
them basic military training to be ammunition carriers in
the pacific war