sm to slo bike tour, day 4

Day 4: Left Big Sur 8:45, arrived Ragged Point 3:30

To recap: Big Sur River Inn (and to be fair, most of Big Sur) lost power. Around 8, we had the worst breakfast of our trip, and by far the worst coffee (it was mingled with flavored coffee, bleah).

As soon as we hit the road, we were greeted with a very long grade -- nothing too bad, but it would have been nicer to ride the grade having spent a day warming up, and skipped Big Sur altogether. The weather was foggy and cold, but the hill kept me plenty warm.

We passed several inns along the way, including Big Sur Inn and Lucia Lodge, which may have been alternate stopping points for day 3. We lunched at Lucia Lodge, which was a huge win: fantastic fish and chips, nice scenery, great service... pricey. But really, really good fish and chips, and lots of friendly people staying or stopping, including fellow cyclists. We spent about an hour on lunch.

After lunch, we headed back into the fog, and had a whole lot of long, gradual ascents and zippy descents. The hills were rolling, but very long rolls (unlike, say, our own rolling Canada road, which is very short rollers). The portion after lunch was the second hardest part of our trip, a distant second behind the first day. The weather was cool and refreshing and we arrived at Ragged Point Inn in good spirits. I spied a couple of Caltrans workers drinking (a large number) of beers by one of the rooms.

After cleaning up, I went over to the Caltrans guys and, rather sheepishly, thanked them for the high quality of the roads we'd ridden in Monterey County (i'd learn the next day, as we rode SLO county, that the road quality was unique to Monterey!). I thought I was being very cheesy in my thanks, but they really appreciated it -- they don't get a lot of thanks from people, in fact, usually quite the opposite. As it turned out, they were electricians and had nothing to do with the road quality, but they still were appreciative.

The room was very nice, roomy, and had a fantastic view -- probably. It sounded like a very nice ocean view, with a beautiful, rugged sea cliff and crashing waves and the works, but I couldn't see any of it for the fog. The fog was there when we arrived, when we went to bed, when we got up, and when we left. We never got to see any views at Ragged Point. But I enjoyed the fog. I'd forgotten how much I love central coast fog. Ragged Point reminded me. Of all the hotels, Ragged Point Inn and Carmel Mission Inn are the two I'd visit again.

The restaurant had great, open-air atmosphere, and potentially great views. The steak was meh, the local wine was good.

Breakfast was (again) not open until 8. We weren't in a hurry for breakfast since the ride to SLO was supposed to be easy. Bananas were not available for breakfast, the coffee was lousy. Still, not a bad enough breakfast to put me off of staying again. In fact, next tour, we should bring our own coffee -- and give up extra clothing for the weight.