Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

The plan for today was to visit the Aquarium, bike 30mi down the coast to Big Sur, and think about doing some hiking there. It turns out that we're bad estimators.

The Aquarium was nice, though pricey. I really liked the jellyfish displays. Their octopi were being boring, but I suppose we were visiting at the wrong time of day for them. Their new celebrity white shark isn't nearly as big as I'd expected. The unexpected star of the tank it's in is a sunfish. Quite bizarre looking.

After breakfast, we headed out along the bike path and then down 17mi Drive, avoiding the more direct route through (and over) Pacific Grove in deference to my preference for flat riding. I'm glad we did, because the coast was quite pretty. Much of the time we were very close to the water.

A quick trip through Carmel put us on Highway 1, which we covered pretty quickly. It was generally great biking. Rolling hills, but not too steep. Great views. There was one section of downhills that was just too fast to ride on a 12in shoulder next to a startling dropoff to the ocean, so I annoyed a few cars and rode in the center of the lane.

We hit Big Sur and passed through a couple villagelets, but decided to press on to the Pfeiffer State Park to check out the lodge. Once we got there, it seemed to be the most convenient option, so we got a cabin there.

We had time for a quick hike before dark... almost. We visited Pfeiffer Falls and saw the sunset at Valley View. Dark had fallen before we got back, but luckily Jessica has excellent night vision and we only lost the trail once.

41.49mi (oops) in 3:24 (avg 12.20mph) plus 2.04mi hiking