We said good bye to Rob from our tent as he packed up and got an early start to the day (he was hoping to cover as many miles as possible today).
We decided to get out of the tent when the sun was out. Katherine noticed a few mice had decided to hang out in the tent awning where it was nice and dry. The mice explained the hundreds of small dirt piles that were all over the campground.
Everything was covered in dew and quite wet outside. Thankfully it wasn’t as cold as it was last night. We made breakfast (fried oatmeal) and the sun warmed us up while we ate.
We decided the night before that we were going to take it easy today, so we decided to do some much needed bike maintenance (cleaning, re-lubing, and re-greasing of parts starting to rust). Riding in the heavy rain a few days ago, combined with the high humidity and ocean spray in the air on the coast, made the maintenance much required. Katherine adjusted her rear derailleur that had caused the chain to skip off the lowest gear into her spokes the day before. I adjusted my front and rear pannier attachments, which was something I wanted to do before we left on the trip, but never got the chance to since we were so busy. I had meant to do so at some point on the trip, but it always got pushed down the priority list. It was nice to finally get it done. I used electric tape as extra padding/shimming around where the panniers clip onto on my front and rear racks so it would be a much tighter fit (it was very loose fitting before, even with the originals spacers/shims (that kept falling out). If you are reading this you probably don’t really care or understand, but anyone with an Ortlieb pannier could probably identify! I also adjusted my front panniers so they weren’t rubbing and wearing out parts on my bike, and in the end I also moved them forward. This should all add up to a more stable ride as they fit snugly (ie won’t shake around as much when I hit bumps) and are placed further forward away from the centre of the bike. If only I did this 5 months ago!
The sun was shining and it was beautifully warm and we were feeling cozy even being outside. We decided we will just take the day off as opposed to cycle a short 60km as we had initially planned. Our last rest day was in Washington which was several weeks ago now, and we were starting to feel a little tired from the cycling everyday. We also needed to do laundry!
It was starting to feel like a real rest day (as opposed to other rest days where we would end up exercising some way or the other). A few hours later, we packed up our dried up tent and headed over to the KOA campground just a 100m inland. We decided to switch campgrounds as we needed to do laundry and also wanted a hot shower (unfortunately Manchester State Park don’t have showers).
Similar to the previous KOA we stayed at in Oregon, they had a special hiker/biker rate of $9 per person. The state parks in California are $5 per hiker/biker but you usually have to pay a few quarters for the showers to work (even if they don’t work as I learned last week..). We are very glad that so many campgrounds on the coast have hiker/biker rates as a regular campground rate, especially in California, is one of the most expensive we’ve seen on our trip. A regular site is $35 in the off season going up to sky is the limit with hookups – more than Ontario parks on occasion! In the State parks it is also interesting to see the places being run by the ‘campground hosts’, who are usually retirees who get a free site (we assume) while they are being the host. Apparently they had quite the budget cuts in the parks so there are very few employees in the parks now.
We did 4 loads of laundry (2 were our sleeping bags) and went out to check out the shore before sunset and before dinner. The beach was a very nice spot, except it was quite windy (although it was coming from the right direction, tail winds from the Northwest!). On our bike ride back to the KOA campground we spotted a few deer well hidden in the vegetation right beside the State campground we had stayed in the night before. The campground was empty again and there were more deer than people there!
Now about the KOA campground we are staying in tonight. If I had to envision a resort for camping, this would be it. We cooked our dinner in the “KOA Kamping Kitchen”. To our great pleasure we discovered their outdoor cooking shelter during the day, but this is not your typical campground cooking shelter. It comes equipped with a roof, several picnic tables, lighting, multiple hot water sinks, electric burners, and even a microwave! During dinner, a campground worker came by the shelter to let us and another family know that they had just made a complimentary fire at the public fire pit area and we were welcome to enjoy it. Katherine and I headed over there afterwards and enjoyed an enormous roaring fire all to ourselves. It was starting to get quite cold outside so it was nice to be able to warm up by the fire with our hot tea. Other amenities at the campground include heat lamps in the bathrooms, WIFI, an outdoor ping-pong table, a convenience store with many food choices, and several “Kamping Kabins” which are basically KOA’s version of an Oregon State Park Yurt (but pricier at $62+). If we were here in-season they even have a hot tub and a heated pool. You can even rent a site with an RV already on it here. There are probably other things I can’t even remember that this campground has. If only we had these ‘Kamping Kitchens’ on our trip on on those days of cooking in the dark or rain!
Trip Around The World 
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