Day 5: Santa Cruz to San Juan Bautista

Happy daylight savings!  With the time change, we now wake up an hour earlier and have to finish the ride an hour earlier, leaving what seems like a much longer time in the evening to sit around camp finding ways to entertain ourselves… and blogging of course!

Woke up this morning to a very wet campground.  The dew was so heavy that it looked like it had rained during the night.  The rainfly on the tents were dripping, and even the ground was muddy.

Breakfast was magnificent.  We went to the award winning Gayle’s Bakery, and feasted on artichoke frittata, ollieberry danish, fresh cut fruit, mocha with homemade cream, and other wonderful things. We got some orange cinnamon buns for breakfast tomorrow, which I am very much looking forward to eating.

We biked all morning through agricultural land with the smell of ripe strawberries in the air, past fields of cabbages and various berries, then through wild canyons in lovely fall colors.  

At the end of the ride we reached San Juan Bautista, the site of another mission.  The mission still holds very popular church services, and although the town is tiny, there were people arriving in droves (some even pouring out of giant tour buses) to attend the services, every one dressed in their Sunday finest.  While services were finishing up, we toured the neighboring historical park, which had numerous mission era buildings, including a hotel and saloon, livery, blacksmith shop, jail, pioneer cabin, and fancy home.  Each one was fully furnished with period decorations, clothing, etc, and had an abundance of very interesting and informative interpretive signs.

By then services were over and we were able to tour the mission itself.  It had a very beautiful chapel and gardens.

We had a late but very large lunch at a good old fashioned diner (not old fashioned in the touristy way, but like it just hadn’t been updated since that had been the new style). The food was excellent. I had a vegetarian eggs benedict, which was a local specialty; Mom and Dad both had sandwiches with fries or onion rings which they rated as great.

Then to the campground, the McAlpine Lake RV park.  I had tried to avoid RV parks when planning this trip, but there was nothing else even close to the correct distance for today’s ride.  Luckily, this is one RV park that allows tents, and its actually pretty nice.  Then tent spots are at the end of the lot, and have grassy flat areas for tent pads.  The spots are very small, but large enough for two tents sitting side by side.  The staff is nice, and there are other amenities like a camp store, laundry facilities, free showers, and a fishing lake (if you’re into that sort of thing).  Plus the RV’ers here are extremely quiet – much quieter than last night’s campground.  All in all, it’s a nice campground, especially for an RV park!

Looking forward to a good night’s sleep, and a pleasant ride tomorrow!

Today's route:
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2856074