Mendocino - Novato: California gets even wetter 18th - 21st October

October 29, 2007 by Naomi.

The minute we left Mendocino, it rained constantly, something we had never experienced before on our bikes; we had always been quite convinced that the rain would stop (this was true for Alaska, Scotland, Washington and Oregon - some of the wettest places in the world!). Thursday was a hellish soggy nightmare with a ghastly headwind (and our slowest day of the trip). Friday was worse. Any coastal views were marred by the pervasive rain and fog.

One problem faced by the humble cyclist in a constant barrage of rain is reduced visibility (and not just because of the rain and fog). For those who don’t wear glasses, it is very difficult to keep your eyes open with rain stabbing into your eyes, and for four-eyed souls, despite protected eyeballs, droplets of rain obscure almost everything and a wobbling pool of water collects on the bottom rim, having a kind of ogling effect on your vision and therefore making you feel like your suffering from some sort of madness. (I daresay the cars driving past thought we were!) Another nasty dilemma we faced was whether to bother keeping waterproofs on - the fact that you sweat when you cycle means that you get wet anyway, the condensation builds up, and by the end of the day we were so utterly drenched on the inside and out, despite all the wicking, waterproof and breathable clothes we wear. I suppose getting water to move one way through clothes, but not the other, is a particularly challenging problem for the scientists…

And of course there is nothing pleasurable about being attired in dripping wet clothes for any length of time, especially a good 5 or 6 hours. Point Arena was supposedly a picturesque place, we saw little evidence of this but were lucky to dry out most of our stuff in the rather cheap but dirty motel room. The pitter-patter of rain which was once a comfort when you know you are warm inside, had become a nasty noise in the night, which woke us up and left us lying in our beds wallowing in a bleak sense of dread of the coming day. Indeed within three minutes of leaving the motel, there was water swimming in our shoes (despite ‘waterproof’ booties!), but all was not completely horrible because we had booked a room at Salt Point Lodge (not nearly as far as we’d originally planned) for the expensive price of $120, thinking it might be something like our lovely room at Mendocino.

But, no, as there’s a distinct lack of competition on this part of the coast – local residents fiercely object to too much tourist development in the area - this atrocious amount of money is an acceptable price to pay for a mediocre motel room with a broken TV and no phone. The measly ocean view and spa were not worth paying over double what we normally pay, and we won’t even talk about the very ordinary restaurant with its bland food and abysmal service.

The next morning, despite a bit of dreaded pitter-patter in the night, we were extremely relieved to find the sun gradually making its way up into the sky, revealing some of the most dramatic and exposed parts of Highway 1, with road cutting into the side of the hills, and nothing more than a sheer drop into the ocean to the west. These climbing roads, the dramatic switchbacks around the bridge at Russian Gulch and the incredible sand spit at Jenner left us breathless not only with the ascents, but with the marvellous views as well. It’s on days like these that you realise hauling your bike and a load of luggage across a whopping continent is just about worth it.

After an equally beautiful ride by a string of beaches from Jenner to Bodega Bay, the road took us inland (sadly leaving the coast, but happily it was a lot straighter and flatter), and we arrived in Petaluma at record speed. The Dollar Inn welcomed us with some offhand customer service, a graffitied but adequate room overlooking Highway 101 (now a major freeway) and free coffee and cable, all for the very reasonable price of 50 bucks.

We headed into Petaluma for brunch, being a very appropriate meal for a Sunday, and found the perfect place to eat it, outside but in the cool shade. While admiring our fellow diners’ excellent looking brunch dishes with hungry eyes, we were dismayed to find not a speck of breakfast on our menus. Brunch was served until 12:30, it was ten past, and on enquiring for a breakfast menu, were informed that brunch was no longer served. Having asked for coffee and tea, they didn’t think to inform us of this major discrepancy and feeling very disgruntled and British (we did not make much of a fuss), ordered a measly crab patty and chicken bacon sandwich instead. By the end of the meal, however, we had started up a lively conversation with some of our fellow diners, who were very admiring of our adventure – always a nice encouragement when on the road, especially when about to embark up a big hill in the hot sun. As the 101 was now a busy motorway, it did not allow bicycles and we had to make do with the usual much longer and hilly albeit very scenic route to Novato. We saw many other cyclists out for their Sunday jaunt (whizzing past us on super-lightweight bikes) and, despite having seen all sorts of roadkill all the way from Alaska, were quite disgusted by the quantity of dead raccoons, deer and frogs that littered these roads. The smell is pretty gruesome, I tell you, particularly so because as panting cyclists we had little choice but to breathe it in.

On a much happier note, Petita Frost, a family friend of N’s from the Germany days back in the 70s, welcomed us in her lovely home, with a great big bath, one of the most delicious meals of the trip (lamb and mint sauce!!), lots of entertaining chat and good wine and a very comfortable bed indeed.

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