The cast of characters

The following are folks we ran into along the way that gave us so much to grin about, to dwell on. We agreed that if we would want to buy them a beer should we run into them in San Fran, then they would get documented in this post.
Names in italics are made up. Not to protect innocence, but because we never bothered to get names from some folks.

Johnnie on the ferry -- a kid who worked the night shift in Seattle and rode the ferry back over to Bremerton. We ran into him at the ferry entrance. His bike was stuck in a single gear. He was tired and asked if we could wake him up once the ferry was docking to Bremerton.

Tim and Buster -- a guy slowly riding up from Santa Cruz to Seattle, with his dog Buster. Buster barked once, but then Tim told him to hush, and we never heard from the dog again. Tim was going slowly, having been on the road for over a month. He lived hardily on the road. When we ran into him on our 3rd day, he draped his tarp over his picnic table and slept out in the open in a sleeping bag.

Grumpy -- the proprietor of Grumpy's Cafe, somewhere in Washington. She had signs all over the place that belied her grumpy nature. A sign in the bathroom reminded you that dirtying it up would warrant revenge from your food server. She was so confused and then amused when I asked for 2 entrees for lunch.

Skate Kid -- a guy in his twenties with a seemingly permanent smile on his face. He leapfrogged us back and forth over the first 2 weeks, and we learned his story over these crossed paths. His mission was to bike down the coast and skate at every skate park on the way. We definitely saw him pull off to do this once. He was fast on the road, too. We imagined that he would find a way to skate or grind every major sight on the way.

McDonald's couple -- two folks we met outside McDonald's during lunch. They were probably the first people we talked much about the route and equipment. They had two older road bikes and more of a mishmash of equipment. They had gotten their panniers for $50 on "Amazon... dot com."

Crook Knees on aero bike -- one of several older folks doing a supported tour. We're not sure exactly which group he was with, but they would ride light, with a car or van lugging other stuff from campground to campground, setting things up before people would arrive. It meant you could ride a faster, nimbler road bike. Crook knees had a very serious aero bike, and went pretty fast until he got to climbs. He had an extremely stiff and bowlegged form, which lent his name. It was totally bizarre to see him straining down the road.

Ice cream couple -- not really a couple, but a pair of old folks who teamed up in their supported ride. They seemed to be a bit lackadaisical with their navigation. At one point, while we were leaving a small city behind us and just entering an onramp back onto 101, we saw them stopped ahead of us, consulting the route cards. They asked us casually, "do you know where any ice cream is?" We of course replied that it'd probably be back in the city, and not further on 101. Later, they saw a traffic jam on a bridge and simply assumed that the road was blocked off and impassable.

Colorado couple -- two people we met at the crowded hiker/biker campsite. The girl had dyed bright red hair and a strange accent. She was a Montreal Canadian and emphasized statements with "EH," but had just come back from Australia, whose speech and unique turns of phrase had left fingerprints all over her accent. They joined firewood forces with us for a very long fire that night. They also had an extremely loud gas burner for cooking. It sounded like a jet warming up for takeoff. We saw them quite a few times on the road.

Klaus and Siegfried -- two middle aged German guys also at the hiker/biker campsite. They prattled away in German and were friendly but not very fluent. They were so excited to get their pictures taken when crossing into California. Klaus was tall and Nordic, while Siegfried was short and a bit dumpier. Both had very serious German-style touring bikes. They also had a German guide to the Pacific Coast route, which surprised us. More on Germans later.

Yos dudes -- going along the coast, the road got very hilly and extremely rocky. We pulled off for a break from this. The only other visitors at the beach viewpoint were two guys touring on hypermotard motorcycles. One guy was cracking up on the beach and was generally very jovial. He was super tan and wore his hair long. A life on the road, I bet. His speech was what really stood out. Not only did he interject with "yo" often, but he would pluralize it because he was addressing multiple people! So he would say stuff like, "aww, are you riding on bikes, yos? Hardcore!" and "stay safe out there, yos!" An amazing specimen of surfer ethos and mannerism.

Rolf and Werner -- we saw these two pull up to the same RV camp as us. Gabe asked them where they were headed. They were taking 8 months to go all the way. To the tip of Argentina. They again had the stouter mountain bike style rides that Germans seemed to prefer. Werner was tall, pale, and cheerful, with close-cropped platinum hair. Rolf was very studious and liked to smoke and read in the morning to get some quiet.

Jack from the Lost Coast -- down 1, there were many stretches of roadwork, often on bridges. A flagman would hold traffic in front of one-lane areas. At one of these points, we pulled up to a portly and effusive biker. He had just done the Lost Coast route that we avoided as too difficult. He said that 60mi stretch took him 5-7 days! Yes, he didn't seem as fast as us, but still, what a morass to battle through.

Wolfgang, Elfie, and Butzi -- the German family who bike toured with their baby in tow. Still reeling about how crazy that is. When we saw that these guys were German, we all thought, California should really pay the German government something for all the tourism they're sending its way. Elfie's English was really good, though we didn't talk to them much. At a picnic site, the couple were tied up chatting with Jack, so we couldn't ask them much about their baby-towing rig. Despite carrying all that gear, they were about as fast as us on the road. You could see cars giving them very wide berth in passing once they realized there was a baby in the baby carrier. When we got to the end of the day, we passed on the awful no-shower state campground, while they stayed there. What terrifically hardy folks.