Where RVs Go To Die (USA Day 138)

Don’t plan short days. They’re never as short as you want them to be, so you spend all day expecting the end and not enjoying the journey. You’d do better planning one long day and a rest than two short days, so that you enjoy the challenge and enjoy the rest. Not that either are that easy, but you see what I mean.

Today was easy: 20 miles to Pismo Beach…except when we checked our hosts’ address they actually lived in Nipomo, another 20 miles further south. Even with 40 flat(ish) miles to cover, we still had the idea of a short day in our heads, which made quite a lot of it rather annoying. Why aren’t we there yet? Who made all these miles for us to cycle? Why’s this road so bloody long?

We zipped through San Luis Obispo’s cosy avenue of a downtown, where independent shops flourished and hulking chain stores had never set foot. The narrow roads and small storefronts brought memories of our English high streets, though with rather more sun and palm trees.

Next, after a longer-than-planned stop under a tree on a picturesque traffic island, we headed into Pismo Beach, a resort town with less heart than a wilted sausage. We passed an extraordinarily expansive parking lot filled to the fences with RVs. These weren’t holidaymakers who’d made a poor campground choice; this was where they left their RVs once the holiday was over. That’s right: thousands, possibly millions, of RV owners, having splashed $200,000 on these rolling hotels, don’t even drive them home. They have them delivered by valet service to a seaside campground and brought back when they’re done. You spend a fortune on a toilet (amongst other things) you can drive anywhere, and you don’t even drive it. Can you imagine anything less interesting on the planet?

One outcome of cycling further than we’d intended today was a pretty significant milestone: our 6000th mile came and went, followed by the 6001st and so on. The original plan for this trip was to cycle up to 6500, but it looks like with our New Orleans to Miami plan we’ll bust that by a good thousand. Turns out we’ve covered more ground than we expected, even with the injury.

We arrived mid-afternoon at the home of our hosts, Don and Mary, who were not only brilliant fun, but couldn’t help creating. Don, whose background is construction, has erected countless structures in the garden of different styles, ranging from sheds to more ornate edifices for the purpose of housing pigeons (long gone), chickens (more recently gone…darn coyotes) and other less flappy items. The entire house has the feeling of something that’s been expanded and developed with a great big pinch of salt. There’s balconies and mezzanines and a wooden walkway leading nowhere, and a huge octagonal bedroom off to the side. A whole lot of fun has been had creating it. We’ll have a rest day tomorrow where hopefully we’ll explore and feed back.