The Pacific Coast: Golden Gate, Big Sur and Hollywood

Sometime around lunchtime on my “second October 26th”, the West Coast of America appeared beneath the left wing of the Fiji Airways Airbus. When I entered the country, I was questioned extensively about my plans. I mentioned wanting to cycle “along the Mexican border”. A stupid mistake. The border guard's expression darkened. But I was still able to convince him of my intentions and he ultimately let me into the country. However, as in Singapore and New Zealand, I didn't get a stamp in my passport, so I asked about it, slightly disappointed. “Do you want a stamp?” he asked. “Sure!” I answered. So I finally got a stamp from the American continent. Outside in the chaos in front of the terminal, Warmshowsers host Cyndi was waiting for me to pick me up. Thank you for the hospitality and help! I spent the following day sightseeing in San Francisco - very beautiful, I really liked the city! After that, however, I had to replan my route a bit: originally I wanted to cycle along the Pacific coast south to San Diego, from where a long-distance cycle route designed by the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) turns towards the east coast. Unfortunately, the Big Sur Highway, a section of Highway No. 1, has been closed for many months as a result of a landslide. But with the ACA I found a detour through the hinterland. Not a problem for cycling, but still a disappointment as the coast of Big Sur is considered one of the most beautiful on the continent. My first kilometers in San Francisco - incidentally the start and finish point of Thomas Stevens' first bicycle trip around the world in 1884-86 - did not take me south, but north to the famous Golden Gate Bridge, which I then crossed twice by bike. A special feeling to suddenly be on this bridge in the best weather, which you have seen hundreds of times before in photos and in films. I then left the city heading south. I biked to the suburbs of San Francisco. The dense, uniform settlements with their absolutely sterile, bare front “gardens” and streets seemed almost like a caricature. Then California showed its most beautiful side: Highway No. 1 runs in the area of the “Devil’s Slide” now through a new tunnel, which is why cyclists and hikers have the old road to themselves - what a magnificent view of the Pacific! It was so beautiful there! I drove mostly on Highway No. 1 for the rest of that day. On the way I met Rusty from Texas who rode with me for a few kilometers. A few days ago he met a Polish touring cyclist named Mateusz from the Warsaw area. Like the Mateusz we met last summer in Lüleburgaz, Turkey?! Exactly this Mateusz from Lüleburgaz! What a coincidence. The next day I met the touring cyclist Fabian from Austria - there is a lot of cycling tour activity on the Pacific coast all year round. For the first time since Europe, I'm traveling on a route where this type of travel is nothing unusual. At night the coyotes howled near the campsite - a bit scary. A day later I met Rusty again. And he told me that actually all cyclists try to cross the construction site on the Big Sur Highway at night, when there are no longer any workers there. Ah yes, so that's what some people do. I continued on to Monterey. At breakfast there I started talking to a passer-by, a woman in her 60s. When I mentioned that I was from Berlin, she asked East or West. I explained that I was Ossi. She then asked very seriously whether I could travel to the West at any time without any problems now. Somewhat surprised, I cautiously replied that East and West Germany had been reunited. She was very surprised about this. I then continued to tell her about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the war against Ukraine.

The Big Sur coast began south of Monterey. And it was really impressive. At times the road towered up to 200 meters above the beaches and bays of the Pacific below! I reached the town of Big Sur, which essentially consists of restaurants, accommodations and a library, nestled in a very beautiful pine forest. Here I replenished all the supplies for the following sections. Rusty joined later, followed shortly afterwards by Fabian. The break was followed by an almost five kilometer long climb. Never too steep, but really without any interruptions. I arrived high on the cliffs of Big Sur. For the first few kilometers along the escarpment I almost had vertigo on the road, so close was it along the cliff over the open ocean! The developing sunset turned the coast a beautiful orange. I heard the sounds of seals coming from the sea. After sunset, the few clouds turned red in color. And then it got dark. There was now a lot of scuttling and scurrying in the bushes. A group of deer jumped across the dark road in front of me. I had three main goals for the day: 1) not to get eaten by a bear or coyote, 2) not to get arrested, and 3) not to fall off the cliff. Above me the Milky Way looked down on me, below me the ocean roared. Brilliant! Later, while camping, my every action was watched by very curious raccoons - food had to be stored safely in containers or on hooks above the ground.

At parking lots along the route, squirrels often aggressively demanded food - but I generally don't feed wild animals, which is why they begged unsuccessfully. I came to a viewing point from which you could watch countless elephant seals lying lazily on the beach and dozing. Near Lompoc Highway No. 1 led me through the outside areas of the Vandenberg Space Force Base. Further south on the coast I camped again in a state park and later looked at the starry sky. Suddenly I saw a greenish trail of light in the night sky. It was localized and approximately as long as the distance between the two outer drawbar stars of the Big Dipper. It remained visible for about ten seconds and then slowly disappeared. In terms of direction, it could have come from the Vandenberg SFB. What are they doing there?! The next day I met Rusty again in Santa Barbara, with whom I cycled for a while to the campsite in Carpinteria. The next day I reached Ventura. The social contrasts there are enormous. On the western edge of the town, homeless people camp in tents under bridges or in the bushes. The town itself could hardly be more well-kept and dripping with money. It is as if exiles were camped at the gates of a promising city. A day later I was driving through the urban area of Malibu. The famous home of Hollywood's rich and famous. The properties between the coastal highway and the beach are well screened from the road. There are some extremely impressive properties enthroned on the mountains to the left. The place was less pleasant for me because, firstly, the road was in a surprisingly poor condition and secondly, the shoulder was often blocked by parking, so I had to move into the right lane of the very fast traffic. Later I arrived in Santa Monica, from where I turned towards Hollywood. I cycled along prestigious Ocean Avenue and then through the back streets of Beverly Hills. The neighborhood was well-kept, with the latest electric cars from all manufacturers in the driveways. But the roads themselves were again in surprisingly bad condition. Eventually I reached Hollywood. And the atmosphere changed, which wasn't just due to the gathering clouds. The streets were dirtier, sad figures staggered along the sidewalks among tourists. A man was standing on the street in front of me and was throwing stones, but fortunately not in my direction. Where the Walk of Fame section of Hollywood Boulevard ends, the sidewalks are no longer lined with gold stars but with tents. Many people live on the streets here, in the middle of everything. In Los Angeles I then hiked to the Griffith Observatory. From the building I had a wonderful view of the famous Hollywood sign and the city on the level below. You couldn't see any of the problems down there up here. From Los Angeles I cycled to San Diego within a few days. On the way, some passers-by told me that they envied what I was doing. Interesting, because during these days I had occasionally wished that the journey would slowly come to an end - the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence... Later I had to say goodbye to the Pacific Ocean. Now I turned my back on him and cycled east along a river in San Diego - towards my home Atlantic. I felt some uncertainty. I now had to leave the “protected biotope” of the nice Pacific Coast Route into the deserts between California and Texas. The security was lost because a much harsher environment was now waiting for me.

From San Diego to the Continental Divide: Last call before the onset of winter

East of San Diego, the bike route (ACA Southern Tier) initially went almost entirely uphill until I reached a Mediterranean-looking pine forest. The nights got really cold from now on. The route remained quite hilly until Jacumba. There I saw the infamous border wall with Mexico, Trump's prestige project, for the first time. The wall, which is more of a solid fence, cuts the landscape straight in half. People still come over. At one point, about 50 men stood next to tents near the road. The Border Patrol was already on site. East of Jacumba, after a short but moody and fast descent, the vast Sonoran Desert suddenly opened up. I cycled through the flat Yuha, a western extension of the Sonoran Desert, on a dead straight road to Calexico. In the cities near the border, Spanish is spoken almost exclusively. Halfway between Calexico and Yuma, I suddenly felt like I was in Saudi Arabia again, as the Algodones sand dunes stretched right up to the multi-lane highway. Everything was like in Saudi: the dunes, the road with the two separate carriageways with two lanes each, the rumble strip between the right lane and the shoulder, the overhead power lines on the side of the road. Astonishing! At Yuma I reached Arizona, the second state I crossed the US and thus also the next time zone. The clock was set forward another hour. I was making progress. Yuma is considered the sunniest city in the world. When I was there it was overcast and lightly raining. What followed was often consistent over hundreds of kilometers: the route ran on mostly dead-straight roads through absurdly wide plains that were only sparsely overgrown. And an important railway line usually ran close to the route. Immensely long freight trains, often pulled by four locomotives, rumbled past me. On one of these sections I suddenly met a Swedish touring cyclist who had been traveling in the opposite direction on the Southern Tier since Florida. From him I learned some very sobering things about the Southern Tier: in Texas it has been as cold as -8 °C at some point during the night, he was often chased by farm dogs throughout the southern United States, and the routes east of Austin are said to be boring and dangerous… Wonderful. That did lift my spirits. Well, no one said it would be easy.

At some point, on the shoulder of the Freeway 8, I came across a very slow-moving touring cyclist who was pulling a large trailer. I spoke to him and within a very short time I was bombarded with crazy conspiracy theories about him. He knows everything and is therefore now on the run. After the “exciting” story, it was me who was on the run, which fortunately wasn’t difficult as I was cycling about twice as fast as him. Shortly afterwards, under a bridge, I met a more normal touring cyclist who was coming from Alaska, going to Ushuaia in Argentina. Lots of cycling traffic here... As I drove into the greater Phoenix area, the first huge saguaro cacti, for which the Sonoran Desert is so known, appeared. Sometimes these things even stand around here as front garden plants. From Phoenix onwards, the mood on the road became noticeably harsher for cyclists. It started with occasional honking, later sometimes followed by insults and even a few attempts to push me from the road. I soon cycled into the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, where I looked across vast plains to several mountain ranges. Unfortunately the local museum was closed. Three police cars raced past with flashing lights and sirens. The reservations are notorious for their poor living conditions, high unemployment and high crime rates. As I continued riding, Mount Turnbull was always present in the panorama towards the south. A nasty, very steady headwind made my progress considerably more difficult. The town of Bylas made a very sad impression. Shortly after leaving the reservation, I found a grocery store. A real Apache came by. We started talking briefly, but all he wanted was money for alcohol. The store's friendly cashier started calling around to help me find a place to camp. I was given a tip about a ruin about two kilometers away, with lots of trees around it. Now I can check off the “camping next to a spooky ruin” thing. The following section was a real scenic highlight. At first the road ran straight through a wide plain, with Mount Graham to the south. The route soon rose to over 1,300 meters and I suddenly found myself on a small plateau surrounded by striking rocks and mountains. Cacti grew rampant on the slopes. A majestic image. When no car came, it was extremely quiet. In Duncan, Arizona, I rolled past interesting old house facades. The whole place looks as if the clocks stopped a few decades ago. At the Hotel Simpson I asked for a room. However, none were available there and Thanksgiving dinner was almost ready. But Clayton invited me in anyway and led me to his painting workshop in the back yard, where I stayed. And later Clayton and his wife Deborah even invited me to dinner - so I actually had a traditional American Thanksgiving meal! And what a friendly, beautiful atmosphere it was. Almost the entire interior of the hotel consisted of antiques. It was like taking a little journey back in time on the doorstep. This continued in the garden, where there is the ruins of a Spanish church next to the painter's workshop. Who has the ruins of a Spanish church in their garden? After we all toasted world peace, Clayton mentioned that for him the most important purpose in life was to bring joy to people. He had truly achieved that today! Deborah takes in cats here that no longer have another home. Nobody knows exactly how many of the cute cats currently live in the house and yard. The next morning I stepped out onto the street again. I took a photo of the hotel as a souvenir. Clayton sat at the window and read the newspaper.

A little east of Duncan I reached New Mexico. My third state. Arizona was crossed, which happened quite quickly. As far as Lordsburg I was traveling in an extremely wide and flat plateau. On the straight road in the middle of this vast expanse, I seemed somehow absurdly out of place on my bike, downright lost. But it was fun. The weather cooperated and the wind was calm too. I arrived at the motel in Lordsburg in the afternoon. The owner was a bit grumpy at first, but then thawed as he was able to tell me about his time in Frankfurt and Hamburg. Interesting how people's paths go. After many stops, he somehow ended up here in the absolute middle of nowhere. Between Lordsburg and Silver City I then reached the western branch of the “Continental Divide”. I left the Pacific Ocean basin and now drove to Emory Pass in the small endorheic Guzmán Basin. East of Silver City I finally started the two-part climb up to Emory Pass. The road first led through pastures and later through a pretty pine forest. Some beautiful rock formations could be seen. The road climbed steadily and never too steeply, so I made really good progress. Then I finally stood at the longed-for pass at 2,508 m. It was freezing cold, but still free of snow. According to the weather forecast, I had just caught one of the last days before the first onset of winter! I put on the fleece jacket, the softshell jacket, the gloves and the balaclava and took photos. When I wanted to drive on again after a while, a Unimog with a Hamburg license plate suddenly came out of the forest. I greeted with a “Moin, Moin!” The couple with their dog shipped the Unimog to Halifax and now they want to be on the road with it for two years. What a coincidence to meet them here of all places. And a strange feeling to have seen the first German license plates since in Khajuraho, India. It was clearly going back home. Appropriately, I had now reached the catchment area of the Atlantic Ocean again on the Emory Pass. The following descent was beautiful both in terms of scenery and driving, but also bitterly cold, despite gloves and a balaclava.

Into Texas: Cotton, Marfa Lights and the Hill Country

What was truly phenomenal was the open plain of the Rio Grande Valley, through which I drove after leaving Emory Pass. I then cycled through a somewhat desolate agricultural area to Hatch. I saw some cotton fields along the road. On the way to El Paso I passed through numerous pecan orchards. Unfortunately, in this region there are often spiked plant seeds (“goatheads”) on the road, which is why I had to mend flat hoses a few times. I reached Texas on a small country road, which unfortunately was not announced by any sign. El Paso greeted me with constant climbs, narrow lanes and heavy traffic. After a while I reached secondary routes where the driving was a little better. In between, I was once again able to marvel at the border fence with Mexico, on the other side of which lies the drug stronghold Ciudad Juarez. Soon I was driving on a few small side roads through the open valley of the Rio Grande, always close to the border. The tailwind was back and pushed me phenomenally. I often rode in top gear on the flat without any effort. After Fort Hancock I had to briefly switch to Interstate 10. In this county, this road apparently has the highest speed limit in the country at 80 miles per hour. A perfect cycling route… A few small mesas and hills rose out of the Chihuahuan Desert. Before Van Horn I reached the third time zone of my US crossing at a county border (!). Another hour further forward. South of Van Horn I continued again through endless plains. I reached the sleepy artists' nest of Marfa. Then I cycled to the viewing platform of the “Marfa Lights”. I first watched the sunset on the platform. Compared to the sun that had just disappeared, the sky looked even more impressive with its deep blue-orange-gray change (from bottom to top) over the vast steppe. A dozen or so other people and I then looked out into the dark plain to the south. Lights soon appeared in the area of Highway 67, sometimes white, sometimes red, sometimes bluish, which began to “dance”. Sometimes they split. In binoculars or in enlarged photos they look as if they are floating above the horizon. Responsible for this effect is probably the interaction of warmer and colder layers of air, which refract the lights of cars or campfires differently and alternately, which is why these illusions are created at great distances, which are known as “Marfa Lights”. Soon another light appeared in the middle of the steppe, away from any road, possibly from an off-road vehicle. An exciting evening. Places like Marfa, Texas and Duncan, Arizona somehow give the southwestern United States a magical charm. At around 9 p.m. the platform emptied and new luminous phenomena no longer appeared. So I set up my tent in the bushes and sheltered in it for the cold night, when the coyotes were howling again. East of Marathon, Texas, the road led, always slightly descending, through a long valley, past many conical hills and longer mountain ranges. The vegetation gradually became increasingly dense and greener the deeper I went. The transition felt really perfectly linear - the complete opposite of the abrupt vegetation changes I've experienced so far on the trip (e.g. southeast of Nallihan in Turkey, east of Jerusalem or west of Calexico). After Del Rio I biked past Laughlin Air Force Base. Training machines, both propeller and jet powered, roared close over my head as they prepared to land. The landscape was now noticeably greener than in the “Trans-Pecos” in West Texas. Rows of trees sometimes lined the side of the road. I had now truly left the deserts and steppes of the Southwest USA behind me! The groves and meadows of the Texas Hill Countries followed suit. After the mountains of Indonesia, the climbs in the Texas Hill Country were no more shocking to me, including the notorious climb just west of Austin. On the way, the landscape reminded me in places of Upper Bavaria. Austin looked very modern and well-kept. A quite significant contrast to the villages in the surrounding area, which often seemed very sad and almost deserted. From Austin, the route will take me to Florida, where my crossing of the US will end in Miami.

About cycling on this section

Pacific Coast Route from San Francisco to San Diego: For the first time since Greece and almost a year and a half, I no longer had to worry much about route planning, but could mostly just follow established long-distance cycling routes. A long-distance cycling route designated by the Adventure Cycling Association runs along the Pacific coast. This organization's tremendously helpful route network can be accessed at https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-cycling-route-network/interactive-network-map/. The cycle route often runs on real cycle paths or on smaller country roads, but from time to time you also have to ride on the shoulders of highways and even freeways. The route in California is used all year round, which is why I met other touring cyclists almost every day for the first time on this trip. Many of the campgrounds in California's state parks offer so-called Hike&Bike (“H&B”) rates for cyclists and hikers. Prices usually range between five and ten dollars. Not all state parks list their H&B offerings on their website, which is why it may make sense to go to the park directly and ask there. I also once got a good H&B price at a campsite run by a county - this offer wasn't advertised on its website either. The supply situation along the way is almost always very good. Only in the area of the Big Sur Highway is it necessary to carry a little more food and water reserves.

Southern Tier from San Diego to Austin: The Southern Tier often runs on service roads parallel to freeways or sometimes on the shoulders of freeways in the deserts and mountain ranges of the southwestern United States. Between Phoenix and Globe, Arizona, I did not follow the ACA Southern Tier, but instead took a significant shortcut via Superior. This shortcut is infamous due to the Queen Creek Tunnel and is considered very dangerous. However, I have found that you can easily bypass the Queen Creek Tunnel via the old tunnel on the old US 60. The bypass starts directly in Superior. At first the bypass appears to be a gravel road, but it soon becomes ridable again. Above the old tunnel, the bypass reaches today's main road again, which didn't seem particularly dangerous to me. There are no state parks with H&B offerings along this section of the Southern Tier. However, I had very good experiences at the RV parks along the route. Wild camping is difficult because almost every square inch of the land is privately owned and fenced. The supply options are very limited in some sections, which is why you should always carry enough water and food reserves with you. The longest “dry stretch” between Sanderson and Comstock in Texas is about 145 kilometers (note: the grocery store near Langtry listed on Google Maps no longer exists).