Spring Break to the Lost Coast
For Spring Break this year I road tripped up north the Lost Coast with Nikki and Chad in La Tortuga. We also took the opportunity to see a bunch of friends and family.
Our first stop was in Montery to see Joey and his pup Roe. We rode bikes in the rain along the beaches, ate humongous sandwiches, made pasta, watched Austin Powers, and enjoyed Joey’s quaint neighborhood.
Next up was Tiburon to see Chad’s family. They live in an awesome spot on the other side of Angel Island from San Francisco. We had their famous enchiladas for dinner and sampled a bunch of ice creams for dessert. The next day we went to Mount Tam where Chad and I did some of the most fun mountain biking I’ve ever done. We went on a supposedly hiking only trail which led us to super fun switchbacks right on the cliff side with nobody around. It was awesome.
The next stop was Sebastapol to stay with Patrick Michelson and his family. We rode bikes to a local winery, Iron Horse, and tasted their yummy sparkling champagne, then road back for a big pasta dinner with the family and Patrick’s awesome neighbors (who are basically family to them). The next day we all went to Goat Rock and jumped in the water, then went climbing a bit on the Sonoma Coast.
Next up was Point Arena where we camped out in the parking lot by the surf. There was a little cafe, general store, skatepark, and it is the spot for the locals to hang. Chad fell in love with the place and had a great time surfing will Nikki and I made the best damn tacos of our lives and enjoyed the sunset.
The next day we made our way up to Caspar for some mountain biking in what turned out to be an ever expanding super network of 80-100 miles of amazing single track mountain biking off of Road 500! Chad and I had a blast for about 3 hours, reminiscing of our bike tour through the area. Then we headed up to just north of Fort Bragg to visit Alex Vincent on his latest project: a soon to be permaculture institute of sorts.
Then we made it up to the Lost Coast where we parked the Tortug and mountain biked in on Usal Road to Usal beach. It was a decent climb on a fire road and Nikki’s first time mountain biking! Chad and I ended up switching off riding Nikki’s roadbike the whole 6 miles to the beach too! Usal Beach was cool – black sand, not too many people, oddly fogged in, it definitely felt lost. On the way back this Elk was just hanging out. Photo of the trip for sure.
On the way back down we stopped and hung out in Salt Point with Chad’s brother Christian and played cards in the Tortug and made tacos. Then Nikki and I headed down to Point Reyes Station and enjoyed all-time morning buns at the Bovine Bakery and sandwiches from across the street. We did some real mountain biking up in the forest and beach area, and then headed down to SF to pick up Chad for a long drive home. 9 days on the road, ~$150 for food and gas, lots of good memories and fun!
