Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
63 miles in 6 hours of riding today. A long day and I'm now relaxing at the Eureka KOA waiting for the pizza to be delivered! Sounds like pretty rough camping, eh?
Oregon was just a warmup for Northern California. It's all one steep hill after another, but we're doing it slowly but surely. Mind you if someone had offered me a plane ticket home around noon today I would have been tempted to take it.
The day started with the sound of raindrops on my tent. Our campsite was wet, tent fly soaked, packing everything up trying to stay as dry as possible we decided to skip our usual camp breakfast of instant oatmeal, banana, and coffee and head for the nearest diner. We were almost out of Klamath before we found a small diner that was serving breakfast. I never eat so many bacons d egg breakfasts as I do when camping.
After breakfast began the start of our first of many hills of the day. We got off the 101 to take the scenic tour of the redwoods - a choice I was beginning to regret as we chugged up yet another long and steep mountain. Once at the top and as we began our long descent through an avenue of giant redwoods all regrets passed and this became one of the most pleasant highlights of the day. I took a few photos but soon realized that my puny camera could not do the trees justice so I simply cruised along enjoying the splendor all around me.
Back on the 101 and another mind and body numbing climb I seriously considering flagging down the next truck big enough to carry my bike and gear to take me to Eureka, our destination for the day. But pride and sheer stubbornness won out and we finally made the top of that ascent as well. But I was beginning to feel the tiredness in my legs. We decided to make The town of Trinidad our lunch stop. It was only 20 miles ahead but it took us a good 2.5 hours or more to get there. Getting off the 101 again and taking the "scenic route". Although bit felt good to get away from
The traffic and noise of the 101, the little road we were on was in pretty bad shape- rough and broken pavement, short steep climbs , no shoulder but not much traffic either. We finally arrived in Trinidad and stopped for a hearty lunch (remember it was too wet and rainy this morning for us to want to make more pb and j sandwiches. So it was grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of yummy borscht. Enough to fuel me for a few
more hours.
We took the scenic route out of town that eventually took us to a bike path that we were told would take us right to the next town of Arcada. And it did, but we were not informed that about a mile of it would become gravel suitable for mountain bikes but not really for fully loaded touring bikes. Thy portion of the trail forced off the bikes to walk up the steep incline. Once more at the top we found the path to be paved and we happily pedaled to Arcada. After following some very confusing map directions we found ourselves out of Arcada and on the 101 heading for Eureka our destination for the night.
Tomorrow is another long day to Meyers Flats. More mountains to climb. I don't think no will bike Northern California again.
- comments