Day 13 pete - an even more interesting day

We wake up on in a bamboo tiki lawn space on the last one acre waterfront lot in Santa Cruz. Reuben has a small backyard rental behind the owners home. Both the Reuben and the owner Danny are true excentric free spirits. Reuben is a carpenter who recently spent 2 plus years living in a vacant space along the river in downtown Napa. He showed us a newspaper article where he built a raft and pitched his tent on it and lived on lake Champlain while working back east. He only owns a bike and carries carpentry tools in paniers, and his calves are huge and he can ride.

Danny is an artist working in redwood carted up from the beach as well as carving jade, though while we were there he was splitting beach redwood into grape stakes which he sold for 3 dollars each.

Reuben had a job lined up in Watsonville which was on our route so he showed us an interesting route through the neighborhoods to the south. Up and down we went through what Tom described as worse than the blue ridge hill climbs. Then we carried our bikes around a locked gate to walk up a steep dirt road. Soon we were riding through a strawberry field. Reuben, thanks for the great adventure.

A lunch in Moss landing propelled us further down the road where we met Larry. He described the bike trail route to Monterey and on to the 17 mile drive. He ended up riding with us most of the way and described the area as we rode. He's a one man database programer who rides daily from 12 to 3.

We hit the Carmel post office to pick up a goody package from Bob Farrell. We open the box while finally doing some laundry. Great cookies, thanks Bob. It's after 5 so while Tom watches the laundry I check out the area for possible places to camp out in the bushes but Carmel doesn't seem to lend itself to sneek camping. I can't find the bridge where Reuben has camped under so we opt for a motel.

Day 13/63 miles/1011 miles total