To Camp or not to Camp ........

Yesterday all our camping stuff was packed into a couple of boxes at the UPS Store and despatched to Atlanta much to Di's relief. She is not  outdoors girl and does not embrace the freshness and freedom of sleeping under a towering redwood or as at Refugio Beach State Park - listening to the trains as they passed every hour or the trucks as the use their compression brakes.
We have been advised that the Hiker/Biker State Park campsites have been invaded by hobo's - all coming south for the winter. We have had a good run and it would be a shame to spoil it at the end - Motels for the last 4 or 5 days - only about 200 miles ish to go.
We left Matt & Bria's with warnings of gangs near Guadaloupe - we decided to circle the wagons to get through - Pat at the front, the ladies in the middle and me protecti g our rear. We thought we would get through with noone noticing but as we were wearing bright yellow  in the end we thought someone would notice. We notice the lookout on the edge of town make a call to Mr Big and he then overtpok us to track our progress. I guess we looked too strong and we got through withput incident in the end.
Monday saw us tackling our last big hills - 1 very steep to about 900 ft and the last along steady climb also of about 900 ft. The first was up "Harris Grade Hill" To Longpoc - we had just started when a pick-up screeched to a halt coming in the opposite direction and out jumped an off duty fire fighter who said we should not cycle up the hill and the lady in front (that was Gilly) was unlikely to make it up. What was all the fuss? Steep, windy with no shoulder and irrisposible drivers. We shpuld turn round. Just how he thpught we would get over the hills I have no idea the other route was a 30 mile detpur and not reccommended in our cycling guide. He offered to turn round and put our bikes on his pick-up which politely declind and then a delecate vpice from behind me saod 'you can give me a lift' and before he could reply Di tossed her bike in the back and was sitting in the passengers seat. Off she went N
as Pat said to me once the car had gone "I haven't cycled 1600 miles to sit in the back of a fxxxing pick-up!".I agreed and off we plodded. In the meantime Gilly was pedalli g upwards and the only time she was nearly knocked off was when the Fireman slowed next to her that aDi could speak to her. He was a concerned citesen for which we thank him.
It was a long day and we ended up camping - the site was regularly payrolled by the State Police which reinforced our view to use Motels from now on.

It is flat, flat
, flat and this morning had a great ride by the ocean through Ventura. We could only another 10 miles as we have our last stretch off wilderness coast - about 40 miles  with no Ccommodation. Tomorrow it is Malabu and beyond nd then LA to get througj.