Well the plan was simply to meet Karen and Lauren for the 34 mile “Swanton Loop”. Which we did, and our ride started off with the Most Beautiful Day Ever, sunny clear blue skies meeting the vast blue ocean, close up views of hawks, and saturated greens of the artichoke fields and hills. Ok, I admit, my sunglasses are pretty great, and they do a bit of color boosting, but still!
A bit over halfway to Davenport, Karen stopped ahead of us, pointing at the ocean. Whale spouts! Yeah! Well, I didn’t really see them at first, but I believed her that they were there, and we continued on towards Swanton dr. (is it Drive? might be Road. Definitely not Street. We just say “swanton”).
Can I just say here how fun it is to ride bikes on Swanton, rolly ups and downs, picturesque views of fields and forested hills. Speaking of forested hills, it was Lauren’s first time climbing the hill of Swanton, and though it reminded us how out of shape we currently are, it was a joy, and we reconvened at the top to continue down the hairpins toward hwy 1, hungry for more Whale Sightings.
We were not disappointed! At various vantage points along the way we were treated to spouts of several whales, also on their way southward. If you have not been so lucky as to view a whale spout from the coast, they are like geysers in the middle of the ocean. Sometimes we could see their backs as well. We got super excited when a whale dove and showed us its fluke! Yeah! There was some jumping up and down and clapping as well as involuntary hooting. (that was us, not the whales)
At a certain point, a group from Team in Training cycled by and assimilated Karen temporarily, and then I noticed this group contained two other friends, Deanne and Anne. “There’s WHALES! Did you see the WHALES?” I got all excited again and failed to attach to their peloton.
The three of us regrouped again at Natural Bridges and wandered off toward West Cliff to see if the whales had made it back with us. We agreed: Best bike ride on the most beautiful day ever! And how lucky are we that we can ride bikes from our houses and then see WHALES! Pretty darn lucky.
P.S. Did I mention we saw Whales??????
