Jimmy and Leslie’s Mini-Adventure

Today’s Date: September 27, 2025

Today’s Start Point: Mendocino, California

Today’s End Point: Jenner, California (kind of)

Today’s Miles: 99.8 Miles

Cumulative Miles: 979.17 Miles

As the name implies, another “interesting” day, and as usual self-inflicted. My over exuberance turned a 75 mile day into a nearly 100 mile day. Details on my folly will come later (the suspense must be killing you).

Today was going to be a 75 mile day to Jenner, California where our hotel was located. I woke early and hit the road at 7:00 am. It was cloudy and in the upper 40’s, with high temperatures ranging from the mid-50’s to upper 60’s depending on where on the coast I would be riding.

I finished yesterday in a construction zone so I started in a construction zone today. When I started, a sign said construction zone for the next 60 miles. Not a good sign, until I realized that the construction they referred to had already been completed, meaning perfectly new smooth roads for miles.

The route alternated between cattle pastures and striking coastal images. I was surprised how much pastureland runs right up to the coast, naively thinking that the land was much too valuable for agricultural use.

There was not much flat and not much straight. There are a multitude of coves running along the shore, with the road curving along with the cove. Think of a backward facing “C”, with each end of the C sitting along the coast, and the road would descend at the top of the C to the inner cove and then climbing back up at the bottom of the C back to the sea. Down and up, up and down.

What made this more difficult was that throughout this trip I have been blessed with a tailwind or no wind at all. Today was the first time that I faced a strong headwind, and I mean strong. As I discussed more at length in last year’s post, there is nothing quite as depressing as a headwind. Tons of effort with little to show for it.

Every time I would come out of a cove, I would get slammed by the wind. It got to the point that I would rather climb out of the cove and be shielded than face the wind.

The wind was bad, the scenery was good (sorry, I am tired and can’t come up with anything better). Once I arrived at Point Arena (about 25 miles in), the road hugged the coast for the rest of the trip. As I rode in the roads, I realized the builders were definitely drunk. Narrow roadways with steep drops to the ocean that follow each curve and hill. Every few miles there were signs reminding drivers to respect cyclists on the road. The fact that there were so many of the signs makes me believe that they were out there because of an abundance of “issues”.

When I was about twelve miles from our destination for the evening, Jenner, California (population 120), I roads by an attractive resort called Timber Cove Resort and Kitchen. I thought this was strange since I knew the name of the Hotel where we were staying was the Timber Cove. Since I was pedaling by Timber Cove (the actual name of the cove), I figured there must be a Timber Cove Inn, Timber Cove hotel, etc. all over the place. After all, Jenner was still twelve miles away.

So I kept going, and going, and going. I started to second guess my brilliant assumption and called Les to see if the hotel was actually in Jenner. She replied that it was, the address of the hotel reflected that the hotel was located in Jenner.

At this point, the gods decided to play a little mischief. My cellphone died and just to add insult to injury, the lack of power would not matter since there was no cell service. While I enjoyed 19th century technology, Les realized that the hotel’s idea of the Jenner city limit and that of any rational human differed.

She frantically tried to get hold of me by calling and through text, which due to my presence in a technology free environment was futile. She was in a mild panic but unfortunately the only way to reach me was by carrier pigeon or Pony Express.

Meanwhile, back to the happy idiot pedaling away. The twelve miles to Jenner included some of the most picturesque and at the same time scary sections I have ridden so far. I think a few of the drivers need to have the “Share the Road” signs tattooed to their arm. Lots of climbing and thrilling descents, with the cliff right next to the road. Beautiful but stressful.

I felt bad because with my camera dead and my GoPro also out of juice, some of the most photogenic scenes could not be recorded. Little did I know I would get a do-over tomorrow.

I was nervous about not having anything more than a brick for a phone, since my usual method of finding the hotel is getting to the town where the establishment is supposed to be located and Google its location. At one of the overlooks I asked a nice couple, who were with their daughter and puppy named Rusty, if I could borrow their phone to call Leslie. At this point they informed me that I was literally in the cellphone dark ages. They were able to help me charge my phone to about 20%, which was close to a solution, but not all the way there with cells service.

I continued on to Jenner and realized that something was wrong. I pulled into a nice restaurant to see if I could use their phone. Although they did not have cell service either, they had a working internet connection. The young lady kindly looked up my hotel and informed me that it was twelve miles back, just as I had originally feared.

My face fell when I realized that I had to face the hill to get back. Trying to cheer me up, she offered that this would give me the opportunity to get more miles, mimicking the pedaling movement with her hands. She was a lovely and kind young girl. I never wanted to rip someone’s face off more than then.

I suppressed my misplaced rage, got on my bike and started pedaling back. The hills hurt again, but at least the terrible headwind now turned into a tailwind. I covered the twelve miles going north much easier than earlier when I was going south.

I finally arrived at the hotel to find a worried Leslie, along with the texts she tried to send me alerting me to the correct location of the hotel. I was beat and it was time to hit the hotel room.

After a few minutes we heard an intermittent howl in the room. It was the type of noise that was more than noticeable. Les went to talk to the front desk and the front desk clerk said they were aware of the noise but luckily it was the only room with this extra “feature”. She said they usually just move someone to a new room if it was bothersome (since Les was in the hotel business, she was mortified by this response-why would they put anyone in a haunted room?).

They moved us to a second room (which apparently is the howling room protocol). This room is lofted with the bedroom upstairs by circular staircase and the bathroom downstairs. Any male reader over 50 years old has already seen the issue for me tonight. As if a day of climbing is not enough, what’s four or five trips down and up stairs during the middle of the night. Having moved once, we capitulated to those pesky gods.

The hotel is actually very nice, with a great restaurant and a nice lobby with a large bar and fireplace. Tomorrow looks to be another hard one but dinner with surprise guests should make it worthwhile.