The Big Sur

it was misty for the first 40km or so, and then still misty on and off for a little while after that, this morning 

The red ground cover is hottentot fig - there is absolutely masses of it here

Cheeky blue jay at lunch 

The spot where the blue jay was sat when I pressed to take the picture 

This is what a £310 room looks like here (taken from the door). One of us will sleep on the floor as the twin bedded rooms were, er, expensive 😉

The view is good though

Steve and I walked miles to town last night for a Thai meal but when we arrived they were only doing takeaway. There was an ice cream place next door that also advertised (on a small sign) pizza. The place was all plastic with gaudy colours and balloons - I wasn't optimistic. When the pizza turned up it was actually very nice, and, naturally, we had ice cream for pudding!

Big Sur (or Big South, for those who are not fluent in Spanish like myself 😉) was so named when it was an empty unexplored expanse.

Well, the strawberry fields didn't exactly go on 'forever', as in the Beatles song, but they did go on for a good few miles. There were also artichokes, of the globe variety (I saw a roadside sign for fried artichokes), and acre upon acre of brussel sprouts.  I hope they won't have any naked flames at the Christmas dinner table with all those sprouts, especially after the traditional American Christmas breakfast of refried beans 😀.

We heard a couple of loud bangs, presumed to be shots, behind us as we pedalled through the strawberries - I said to Steve "that's what happens to you if you try and steal a strawberry".

There were several 'flaggers' (stop go board people, or, in fact, stop slow, as they are here) at roadworks today - the one guy seemed quite friendly so I shouted back asking if he could hold the rest of the traffic up for an hour or so - I got a laugh. The good thing about flaggers rather than traffic lights is that, when they let a bike through, they wait till you get to the other end before letting the oncoming vehicles go. 

Today we have pedalled 135km with 1767m of ascent, which brings us to Lucia. It's been a stunning ride after the first 50km or so.

By the way, I made up the bit about refried beans for breakfast at Christmas time 😀.

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