Went out for a walk on the beach from the campsite to the Pismo Beach pier 2 miles away. Strolled around the main street looking at the shops and the restaurants. Walked back then drove back into town for lunch at a little Mexican café.
Went through San Simeon, stopped at the Hearst Castle. Decided not to take the expensive tour. Just a little past the Castle, there was a beach with hundreds of elephant seals. Some of the bulls weigh nearly 2 tons and were bellowing and jousting with each other. Other seals were just sunbathing, flipping sand over their bodies.
Headed up the coast highway, it was a beautiful sunny day. Life was good.
Then tragedy struck. We were pulling out of an overlook 1000 ft above the Pacific on a curve in the road when a motorcycle came around a blind turn, passing a van at high speed in spite of the double lines. The RV was already in the middle of the road and all we could do was hit the gas to try to get out of the way. The motorcycle braked hard, went into a slide, missing us to the rear. The driver and passenger were thrown off as the bike flipped sideways, just missing going over the edge of the 1000 foot cliff.
The driver appeared to suffer from broken ribs, and was in quite a bit of pain. The woman passenger seemed to just have cuts and bruises. They both laid on the ground until the ambulance came to take them to the hospital. The motorcycle was severely damaged and was leaking gas.
The motorcyclists were part of a tour group of about a dozen bikes led by a guide in the van that had been passed. They were all French, only the guide and his passenger spoke English. They all milled around talking in French while we waited for more than a ½ hour for emergency crews to arrive, we were so far from any town.
After the police were done and everyone had left, we drove on, quite shaken. It was getting near sunset and thankfully we came across a little campsite next to the ocean.
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