Tomorrow is July 22. The day we were supposed to fly back from Denver in our original trip plan. Noah only wanted to do two weeks.

It is lunchtime and we are at Myers flat which is nearing the end of the Giant’s avenue.

Noah would like to go home tomorrow. If we do 70 miles today we can get to Leggett tonight and maybe catch a bus out of Ft Bragg (another 45 miles) tomorrow.

We start out early.

Avenue of the Giants is as wonderful as I remember from biking it last summer. As soon as we are in those trees we both feel a timelessness that is palatable and relieving.

We also enjoy eating blackberries at the side of the road which are plentiful. As soon as you say “ok I’ve had enough” you spy a cluster that looks like it will taste even better. It’s hard to stop.

There is an enormous and varied amount of wood carvings on living and dead trees.

There are all kinds of redwood attractions. There’s the immortal tree and the eternal tree and the 1200 year old tree and the tree you can drive through ( very old and still producing greenery) and the tree with the small house in it etc.

Of course there is also the dead tree.

There is one good thing about a giant heavy logging truck passing you on a road with very little shoulder which is you get a big burst of wind pushing you along for a moment.

Mostly, thank goodness, there are wild trees.

After we got out of the avenue, we started climbing in a big way. We were prepared for it in that we knew about it and were clearly no stranger to the long 7% grade hill into Garberville. It didn’t sound like it would be as bad as the Klamath climbs.

What we didn’t expect was how hot it was going to be.

We took this photo on the mileage counter machine on Noah’s bike at 4:45 pm. We had forgotten about it earlier and kept trying to get the temperature on our iPhones but they kept having the “alarm too hot!” sign and we couldn’t get them to operate.

When we pulled into Garberville we were completely beat and then I got stung by a yellow jacket. I am allergic to them and so I got all swelled up. It was 98 degrees in the shade at 6 pm so we decided to get to the nearest campground which was 3 miles away with wifi showers a pool and a hot tub.

I was thrilled to finally wear my new bathing suit in the cool pool even with my balloon like right shoulder.

Garberville is a town made from marijuana money of the early Humbolt farms. It is a strange place. I loved the impulse item at the register of the large chain grocery store. Very fine pruning shears.

Whoops I forgot to mention that when Noah and I were melting on the climb and the phones were burning up, we had a moment of clarity and ditched our bikes

And scrambled down the mountain side to the South fork of the Eel river below. By the time we scrambled up again we were almost dry!