Bike Odyssey Day 27 (June 12) – Thank you, Mr Twain

The coldest winter I ever spent, wrote Mark Twain, was a summer in San Francisco. But today we got lucky! The coastline north of San Francisco, cold and foggy the last 2 days, suddenly shed its shrouds and we rode in blazing sun through a chilly wind. A smell of wild fennel, as we left SF, assailed me with memories of the Ligurian coast where I was raised overlooking the Mediterranean. Same flora. The cliffs we rode along reminded me of somewhere quite else, with their grassy promontories and steep slopes – North Devon. When an ocean bites into the land, the jaw marks look the same. And here at last we met truly twisty roads.

More wonderful piney smells, riding north, and, above us, more hawks than ever, riding the thermals where the water meets the steep cliffs. More than once on this trip I’ve noticed one tiny bird, almost invisible it’s so small, mobbing a hawk and driving it off. Birds are fearless, unimpressed by size.

Pausing in tiny Point Arena, I decided I had enough gas to reach Elk, a town on the way to Fort Bragg, along Highway 1. I barely made it, and found no gas pumps there. 10 miles to go till Albion, the next hamlet with a pump. Prices are arbitrary here: $4.07 a gallon in Fort Bragg, $6.00 a gallon in if-you’re-here-you-can-afford-it Mendocino. The Elk garage gave me a gallon at $4.37 (and tiny Albion two more at $4.47) and supplied it straight from the barrel, as it were – from the motherlode of petrol, huge tanks out at the sweet lonely back yard of the 100-year old garage.

So unlike Elk City, that sad empty place we passed through a week or so back, like a dying, tick-laden beast afflicted with franchises, Elk is a tiny thriving place: its grocery, overlooking the ocean and the cliffs, is full of wondrous home-made jams, delicious sandwiches. Small is not only beautiful here, but survives.