Day 1 [Damn Coyotes]

Day one consisted of an exhausting 45 mile climb down the Pacific coastline on California 1.  We began the journey from about 50 miles north of San Francisco and 10 miles inland.  Zac and I met up with David and set off by 11am.  We rode all day and just barely managed to barrel into our intended campground by sunset.  With about 20 minutes of daylight left we climbed the final two mile ascent down a dirt road to our campground (some of it I walked) and began to set up our tents for the night.  As soon as we began to put up our tents, we got a visitor - a skunk.  He decided to keep us away from our campsite for about 15 minutes as he meandered around, forcing us to setup the rest of the way in the dark by the time he decided to leave.  California 1, at least during this portion of it, is absolutely brutal...I mean I rode the hardest 45 miles today that I've ever ridden in my life!  Steep incline followed by steep decline is all you get.  This being said, as soon as we all had our tents set up and our sleeping bags rolled out, we got into our tents (at around 7pm).  That's just how damn tired we all were.  The worst part is that good sleep never came out of this.  There was no one else in our campground, and this can be kind of nerve-wracking when you begin to hear coyotes howling.  For a while the howls started to sound like they were getting pretty close, and then we heard nothing else from them.  After that, every time I heard a stick breaking (which was quite frequently) I had to assume that it was a killer coyote that stepped on it.  I got maybe four hours asleep...while clutching my bear mace canister for dear life in my tent.  Here's a morning photo of the first night's campsite.