Day 3: Watsonville to Dr. Shapiro's hummingbird camp

I'm writing today's post preemptively because I don't expect there to be an electrical outlet at the secret campsite Ian told me about by email earlier today. In fact, at the moment I'm enduring the crappiest coffee shop in all of Carmel because was the only place I found a socket.

One of the high points of the day was when I woke up and squeezed my butt cheeks together. The were mch less sore than they had been ten hours ago as I went to sleep. I was able to join up with the path suggested by "Bicycling the Pacific Coast" early on. That was good to know that route I was on should actually work. Right now I'm navigating by switching between the guide book and Google maps, both on the iPhone. The Kindle version of the guidebook as okay as long as you are simply progressing serially, but flipping back and forth is slow, and the electronic book has 3000 pages, making jumping around difficult. Overall, this is much better than a compass and Rand McNally road map.

Today's ride has been much better than yesterday. I'm still saddle sore, but my legs feel much better and I'm enjoying the trip more. When I saw a sign on the beach that said, "Clean up after dog", I thought, "but it's not even my dog!" and laughed at how funny I am for the next two miles, whereas yesterday I would just have ignored it.

I took a scenic route through Monterey because the guide book said to, but it was a very beautiful ride along the coast with beaches, se lions, waves crashing dramatically against the rocks, etc.

The ride has been undulating, but nothing like the hill yesterday.