Cycling trip to the Fish Zoo

Apologies for the delayed post, we've been busy!

For memorial day weekend, we decided to take a bike tour. Monterey seemed like a nice destination, with lots of bike-friendly roads to travel along the way and the most excellent Fish Zoo at the end. Given only three days, and Nimue's current touring range of about 60 miles, we chose to start from the *top* of the ridge, rather than ride from our house and thereby add 20 miles and a couple thousand feet of climbing to the front end of the ride. We parked the car at a friend's house on Summit Road, so we didn't have to worry about it being there when we returned!

Here's the route and elevation profile for the first day's ride:

Based on our attempt at the Delta Century ride to swap riders between the tandem and a solo bike (which worked, but needs fine tuning to be viable for longer distances) we elected to have Anna and Nimue stomp pedals on the tandem, and Chad would carry all the clothes and gear on his bike. This combination proved to match our speeds pretty well.


From the ridge, and Summit Road, we dropped down Soquel-San Jose road -- a long, gentle descent of sweeping curves on mostly good pavement and little traffic. From the bottom of the hill, we worked our way though Soquel and Aptos, over towards the coast, along the very roads that Anna and Chad rode on their "tandem getaway" after their wedding. We quickly found ourselves on the rolling hills of the agricultural coast, riding through giant fields of ripe strawberries, lettuce, and artichokes. We wound around the back side of Elkhorn Slough (which we visited a couple of years ago by kayak) and then came into Castroville in time for lunch.

Pretty much the first sight we saw coming into town was the Giant Artichoke restaurant -- for three hungry riders, it looked like the perfect place! We gorged on a big plate of fried artichoke hearts, then burgers and a corn dog for Nimue.


From Castroville, we took a delightful separated bike path pretty much all the way in to Monterey. It took us along more ag fields, then out to the sand dunes along the coast, into town. An afternoon wind made us work a bit, but high clouds, cool temperatures, and great scenery made it enjoyable labor. We soon found ourselves coming into Monterey, and the hotel chosen by Anna was practically adjacent to the trail, was very bike- and kid-friendly, and featured a hot tub that we had been looking forward to all day.

After getting cleaned up and relaxing in the hot tub for a while, we walked a few blocks down the trail to Fisherman's Wharf, and found a charming restaurant specializing in all things calamari. They, too, were very kid-friendly, and surprisingly uncrowded -- the slower pace likely coming from the current economic challenges. After dinner, Nimue made her very first trip to a real, old-fashioned candy shop; her eyes didn't know where to land, but we escaped with only a pound of salt-water taffy to share.

Sunday found us making a casual start to the morning, and after breakfasting at the hotel's attached restaurant, we walked the wonderful multi-use trail from the hotel to the Fish Zoo. Our recently-acquired family membership allowed us to bypass the block-long ticket line, and walk directly in -- no waiting! There was quite a crowd at the aquarium, but we managed to see nearly everything, including the feeding of the tuna, and Nimue got lots of hands-on time in the kid exhibits.




We played on the beach on the walk back to the hotel, then cleaned up and did some more hot-tub relaxing / warming up.

After this, we headed to a local pizza joint for an easy dinner. Anna and Chad made plans for Monday's ride, in particular researching cafes along the route that we could stop at for breakfast, coffee, and sandwiches to go. Chad's iPhone proved invaluable for this task, as we wanted to find a place with good food, in the right direction, and not too far off the bike trail. We found some good candidates, made a plan, and went to bed.

We made a quick departure Monday morning, as we knew we could well have a long day of it, with a big climb at the end of the ride. We quickly located our chosen breakfast stop, only to find it closed -- small, character-filled cafes seem not to update their hours on their websites... A quick consult of the iPhone showed that our #2 cafe wasn't in the desired direction of travel, but it also wasn't really too far away and we were getting hungry and desirous of coffee, so off we went. The Paris Cafe proved to be a good choice, and we were quickly fueled and supplied for the journey ahead.

Our path for the day was pretty much a reverse of Saturday's route, as far as Watsonville. Our map indicated a dedicated bike trail along the northeast edge of town, which proved to be an inaccessible levee maintenance road... this had the unfortunate consequence of routing us onto Freedom Blvd, through the middle of Watsonville, which we really can't recommend for bike travel. Almost any side street would be a better choice! Once through town, though, the traffic thins out and the road resumes its meandering rural character.

Turning off Freedom onto Corralitos Road, we soon pulled off the road at an elementary school (closed for the holiday), and had a yummy lunch sitting at a quiet table as the sun started to come out. From Corralitos, we began to climb Eureka Canyon, which is mostly gentle, narrow, and pretty as it climbs towards the ridge. The higher we climbed, the more the sun came out, and we really enjoyed the change from the gray of the previous two days! Soon, we came out the top of Eureka Canyon and onto Highland Way, which continues the climb and parallels the San Andreas fault line -- the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was just below us a few miles.

Highland eventually changes into Summit Road, and we then passed Soquel-San Jose road, completing the loop we started on Saturday. Just a few more miles returned us to the car, with one more excellent adventure under our belts.

And here is the route and profile for Monday's route!