Day 2: Monterey to Gualala

Planned: 291 miles; Rode 234 miles
By Jim

The morning started with a “guy” breakfast at Denny's, followed by a quick fix at Starbucks. Actually I skipped the coffee, because I’d found a BMW dealer just 15 miles to the north, where I got my battery replaced in an hour. PG, Dennis, and Robb pulled in right on time, and we finally started up Highway 101 towards San Francisco at around 10:30 am. We spent the next 90 minutes or so riding past crops and cattle, before the aroma of fertilizer gave way to fish smells, as we made Highway 1 and the coast a few miles south of Santa Cruz.

Traffic congested predictably as we neared San Francisco, and suddenly the crimson towers of the Golden Gate Bridge were peeking through the clouds that hung low over the bay ahead. “No toll northbound” flashed large yellow digits as we sped up the entrance ramp and onto the world’s most famous bridge, where pedestrians seemed as numerous as cars. A minute later we were over land again, and after taking a sharp right on a too-short ramp, we pulled into an even more crowded lookout point. The bridge stood tall and red on our right while Alcatraz lay low and gray to the left, and for a moment Tony Bennett and Dirty Harry duked it out in my mind.

A few camera clicks later we were back in traffic, fleeing the scene as fast as we could, past Sausalito and into ten miles of the curviest roads any of us had ever seen. Forty-five minutes later we stopped for lunch at Stinson Beach, which is best described as Northern Exposure by the Sea. We lunched more quickly than either our stomachs or the pretty little town deserved, but the Big Sur episode had taught us to appreciate the sun while we had it.

Bodega Bay, Point Reyes, Sea Ranch—one beachside Northern Exposure rerun after another greeted us, along with Spanish tourists, French teenagers, and the occasional giant rock covered with barking sea lions. Meanwhile, a sporadic cell phone signal gave me one bar just often enough to update Dolly on our progress, so she could stay a step ahead of us in checking out hotel rooms. (It’s high season, and by five o’clock the “no vacancy” signs start lighting up.)
Home for the night turned out to be the Gualala Country Inn, just down the street from Bones Barbecue, in beautiful downtown Gualala. We had missed our target mileage by 57 miles, but knew better than to do more twisties in the dark. Besides, how often do you get to stay in a town that sounds like a message in tongues?