A friend in Santa Barbara warned me away. Don’t come now, she said, the fires are over the road.
That road, Highway 101, which leads into the southern California coastal city of Santa Barbara from the north is bounded by a desertlike landscape. And no wonder it was burning. Wildfires were ravaging the state, and nearby in the Santa Ynez Valley, temperatures spiked at over 100 degrees.
Sounds like the kind of weather for cycling? Not!
But I was on my last research trip for Cycling the Pacific Coast, on a 30-day biking and camping excursion along California’s 900-plus miles of coastal roads. I had a date to meet my wife in San Diego and Amtrak tickets home. I could hold up for a day or two, but I couldn’t stop.
I took a day off in San Francisco, then returned to the route. At my research-driven cycling speed, I was covering about 40 miles a day, so it would be at least a week before I would near Santa Barbara.
After seeing the sardine cannery and waterfront aquarium in Monterey, I detoured off the route and cycled a moderate ride over to Salinas, the birthplace of John Steinbeck (author of The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, and my favorite: Travels with Charley, in which he takes his dog on a road trip across America). I thought perhaps Salinas would be a good side trip for the book. The town honors its famous son well and the 20-mile detour is simple, but the excursion didn’t rise to the Side Trip level. I was saving my precious page count for diversions that would “wow” readers.
By the time I’d reveled in the winding Big Sur section of the coast road and past the monument to hubris that is Hearst Castle (frankly I found the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas more enchanting), I was well into the chapparal-covered hillsides that would take me to Santa Barbara. And my friend reported that the fires were under control and the highway was to be reopened. Whew. I knew there was another way into the city through the hills north of town, but that winding road had lots of climbing and no shoulders.
When I got within a day’s ride, the heat had abated to the 90s—needless to say it was a dry heat—so I decided to venture off piste once more and explore Solvang and the wine region at the foot of the Santa Ynez Mountains. The Danish-themed town was too purposefully kitchy for me, but I loved the dusty vineyard-lined roads north into the valley, and I discovered a village that seemed right out of a John Ford western (updated with wine country money): Los Olivos. So I pedaled my steed back and forth through a blazing afternoon, sweating on even the smallest incline, and returned to the unassuming Buelleton for the night. There I recalled the movie Sideways from the great Alexander Payne, which was filmed in the area and themed on the local wine valley that lies “sideways” to the more famous north-south oriented Napa and Sonoma areas.
The next day, as I screamed down the long Highway 101 hill into Gaviota, the coastal spot that would take me to Santa Barbara, I could smell the fire. But rather than flames, I saw the charred remains. The ground was burned, all the juniper and grasses gone. Where 101 turned at the ocean’s edge, the small patch of landscape between the road and the water was black against the glittering bay. The fire had indeed jumped the highway. The roadside park where I’d camped on my earlier research trip was closed. Just as well, as it was an inhospitable scene.
That was a number of years ago, and last year the fires were mercifully few and small along the California coast. Good thing too, because hillsides denuded by fire are vulnerable to mudslides when the rains come. In fact, the next year that was just what happened to my Santa Barbara friend, who lives in a community south of the city. She was evacuated as a wall of mud swallowed hillside homes and clogged the roads. This winter’s rains has caused some coastal roads to be closed, so people traveling there have to endure detours.
Have I enticed you into planning a bike trip yet? Aw shucks, that was my goal with this newsletter! Perhaps it got a bit away from me, what with recounting the disasters. I’ll provide practical tips, and hopefully more inspiration, next week. And to distract you, here are a couple of pretty pictures from the area.
Now is the time for scheming! Search out a route that you would love to try, however short, block off some time when the weather should cooperate, and make it happen. And be prepared: adversity on the road might be as memorable as it is inevitable. But at least it won’t be boring.
Adventure Cycling Association Forum discussing road closures: https://forums.adventurecycling.org/index.php
nice spokeseye view of them vineyards and mountains Bill!
Bill, Fun, though you missed out in Salinas. There's an amazing, totally divey Mexican food restaurant with the BEST chips, perfectly salty and oily! Next time. And, yes, the elephant seals are stunning down by Bill's big house on the hill. The house is pretty fascinating, too, with some lovely marble! I have driven down the road from Carmel quite a few times and always worry when I see bikers; too many people looking at the scenery. Glad you made it safe and sound.