by Philip

Day’s mileage : 68

Running total : 1,830

We had an early start this morning as it’s a (planned) 67 mile day to Lompoc. We had a breakfast of strawberries and then scones and pastries provided by our host. We were away just after 9, and headed out of Los Osos on a grey morning to start our day of mainly inland travel.

The road took us along the Los Osos valley – much narrower than the valley with King City the other day – but agricultural again with smaller fields, and with vines, lemon trees in full fruit, possibly (they were a long way away) avocados, and various unidentified green crops. We saw a hawk sitting on a post, a kestrel on a power cable, and a heron in a field with a beak full of straw. We’ve commented before on the relative lack of roadkill we’ve seen in our nearly 1,800 miles – but in one mile this morning I saw skunk, stoat, opossum and banana on the shoulder. One amusement was the repairs to cracks in the shoulder – done by pouring tar by the looks of it – but the workers occasionally became more creative, painting initials in a heart, a smiley face, and the name of a supported football team. We were accompanied at times by the scuttling ground squirrels in the verge. As we entered San Luis Obispo, the end point for Liz’s inspiring ride in 1987, it turned out her abiding memory was of her hunger and devouring a McDonald’s egg McMuffin.

We rode through Pismo beach and Shell beach, the road taking us parallel to the coast but about 100 yards away and 100’ above sea level. It is mizzling slightly as we stop for a quick break. 

At the end of Pismo Bay, back on highway 1, we turned back into agricultural land, with fields on both sides of the road, pretty dunes on our right and hills on our left. We climbed out of the valley through a eucalyptus grove and saw a sign for a specific area where Monarch butterflies congregate in the winter. The road is gentle and not too busy – the 101 is not far away and carries more traffic here – and the mizzle has stopped although the sun is still hiding. We stopped for a snack in a lay-by next to a nursery with lots of flowering roses. 

Over the hill we came into another vast plain, all agricultural, but different to further north. There are raised beds all encased in plastic, and we saw workers on hands and knees planting crops – we think strawberries – presumably for a later or second harvest. In other fields cabbages were being picked, and then acres of root vegetables and broccoli were being watered. The road was straight for many miles, with huge areas under plastic of one kind or another. We saw all stages of cultivation – ploughing, sowing, irrigation and picking, and overall it’s given us a greater appreciation of what happens to get veg to our plate.

Passing through the one-street town of Guadelupe, which could have been a Western movie set, we turned south and enjoyed a tailwind for the next stretch before a very late lunch in the town of Orcutt – the place to come if you need sewing supplies, it would seem.

From Orcutt we went through some residential roads and then had 3 delightful miles of gentle ascent with virtually no traffic, following alongside highway 135. Then a Komoot special made us cross and then join the highway before heading up the Harris Grade Road. Here we saw a team picking lettuce, a slick affair with fascinating equipment showing how they were picked, outer leaves removed, packed in bags, stacked in boxes and the boxes loaded onto a trailer – all with much laughter audible to us up the hill and watching through binoculars. We climbed to 970’ on a winding road through the hills and were rewarded with a spectacular view of the valley with Lompoc below, much more forested this time. A three mile descent to the town was welcome, and we came into the town past a dilapidated drive in movie theatre which reminded us of our childhoods in Barbados and Malawi. Stopping to buy food we wended our way through the town to tonight’s AirBnB.

Our accommodation is a tiny apartment on one side of a Victorian house which has a stunning formal garden and various rental and AirBnB properties within the grounds. I’m finishing this blog post as Liz does battle with the microwave and teeny tiny oven – it looks like a feast is coming!

Additional notes

Baywood-Los Osos to Lompoc, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, CA.

Left at 8.55am. Arrived at 5.15pm.

Weather: Overcast and cool. Some slight drizzle. A little sun at times. Tail wind from Guadalupe.

Landscape: Modest homes of Los Osos. Then a busy main road but with a good shoulder or bike path. Tops of the hills in mist. Some hills were green, some brown and some were patchwork. Fields of crops. Skirted around the edge of San Luis Obispo. Passed a field of lemon trees laden with yellow fruit. Along a little-used road (the old 101?). Sand dunes along the coast. RV and mobile home parks. Inland through crop country, here many were grown under white plastic, rather stark. Groves of eucalyptus – we had our second snack beside one of them. More fields of crops. The railroad track and a double-decker passenger train which emitted a loud blare. Highway 1, the railroad to our left and crops and hills to our right. After Orcutt we didn’t rejoin the 1 but rode parallel to it on an old, quiet road.

Towns: Shell Beach. Pismo Beach. Grover Beach. Inland through Oceano. The towns are a mix of touristy but also rundown in places. Arroyo Grande. Guadalupe. Orcutt, a small town with two sewing shops. More crops. The pretty Harris Grade Road took us over the hill to Lompoc.

State roads: Highway 1 inland, quite busy with fast lorries and a variable width shoulder. Quieter after Guadalupe but with a narrow shoulder so we had to be alert. This afternoon the 1 was a massive dual carriageway but it had a wide shoulder and there wasn’t too much traffic.

Breakfast: Strawberries. Buns the host left for our breakfast. I ate one and took one for my first snack.

Lunch spot: Finally stopped at Orcutt at 2pm, tired and hungry. We ate on a bench at a crossroads (‘intersection’).

Dinner, made by Liz: Thai boom boom prawns with jasmine rice and veg, a marvel created using much initiative in the tiny kitchen with minimal equipment. Fruit and yogurt. Tea and chocolate.

Wildlife: A hawk on a post. A kestrel. A heron on the ground with a mouthful of dried grass. Ground squirrels.

Plants: Palm trees and bougainvillea. Eucalyptus. Crops!

Things we saw: After climbing a small hill inland, looking back we could see the different crop colours from higher ground, beyond them a stripe of yellow sand dunes, a stripe of sea and hills in the distance. Pretty. Just outside Guadalupe was the Cooling and Shipping Co which must process the produce harvested here. Guadalupe is an old town with a hardware store that’s been there since 1954. On a tall wall were the remains of an old ad that read ‘Gold medal flour. Why not now?’ We rode past a golf club on our right while pickers worked on our left, quite a contrast. A nodding donkey oil well in operation. From the heights of the Harris Grade Road we looked down on a fascinating harvesting procedure underway, slick and complex, involving a team of about 15 workers and a large, slow-moving apparatus within which lettuces were harvested, stripped of outer leaves, bagged in pairs and emerged boxed at the other end. The Harris Grade Road had the largest number of roadside shrines over a short distance – we usually pass about one a day but there were four over this stretch. Most are home-made crosses. All are sobering.

People we spoke to or saw: We passed quite a few unladen cyclists and most were friendly, a lot of waving and one even called out ‘Have a great trip!’ A Dad on an e-bike, his son riding pillion gave us a big smile. At our first stop at 13 miles in a lay-by, a passing cyclist checked we were ok. Some of the pickers waved to us. A friendly gardener in the public garden behind our bench in Orcutt.

Incidents: Everything ached in the night each time I woke. I felt apprehensive about the day, 69 miles after feeling tired the last few days. But when we left I felt immediately back on form and enthusiastic about the day. Rounding a corner we saw the sea and Philip had to re-write that part of the blog as he wasn’t expecting to see it at all today. There were many sprinkler jets and at one point I got a sudden dousing from the other side of a hedge. Komoot directed us right through a locked gate leading into a vineyard and as a result we had to join the dual carriageway for a while.

Shopping: Albertson’s, Lompoc.

Accommodation: A small wing of a Victorian house.

Today’s sound: Crop sprinklers.

Today’s smell: The lemon orchard.

Special moments: It was nice to be off my 1987 route, somehow although special, that was skewing my experience – this is our 2025 adventure. I like the eucalyptus groves, their heady scent and the association with the Monarch butterflies. The trek through the crops would have been harder with rain, hot sun or a head wind. Philip coming out of his cave after lunch. Tea and a Ragged Point cookie. Looking round the Victorian garden at our accommodation. Making a pretty, tasty dinner.

Positive experience from my journal: Feeling back on track today, enthusiastic.

Appreciation from my journal: Not minding the slog through the crops (I enjoy the crops, I find them endlessly fascinating).

Video: The slick picking apparatus (17s). The Harris Grade Road (34m43s).

Mementos: Albertson’s receipt, Lompoc.