I left my hotel room at eleven which is as late as i legally could. It was because of the electrical outlet and the WiFi.
I met an older man as I was leaving there who told me to take “The Avenue of the Giants” as an alternate route to 101. River who has been texting me tips and suggestions from further down the road told me the same thing.

Before leaving town, I went to the bike store and got my chained cleaned and lubed (no charge, nice guy) and I got stronger sunscreen at Walgreens and a double shot latte at the Starbucks.

After that it was forty miles of beautiful scenery and small towns but no where for food so it was another day of trail mix and protein bars until six o’clock.

Avenue of the giants was pure magic. There is nothing like a 50,000 year old tree to keep your ego in line and your life in perspective.

Very weird thing was, most of the photos I took in the Redwoods had a big blot of light in them, so most of the redwood photos look like this

Maybe it’s dust, maybe it’s something else.

Also on the avenue, are wonderful little towns. Pepperwood with a population of fifty had two nice produce stands with vegetables from family yard gardens and a lady who made great bags out of animal food (horses and cattle and chickens) containers. Also it had a lovely bench. You see quite a few of these kind of benches in these parts.

Also on this road are roadside attractions like little rooms and even tiny houses built inside ONE HUGE TREE long ago. It’s really quite magical mystical like in a kind of corny but real way.

After a long day of riding I finally get to Garberville. I had heard about this town since the early 1980s when I had girlfriends who had girlfriends who grew Dope up there. It was sort of mythic in my mind and I was surprised to find it a two block town. It was however a very cool two blocks with Rastafarians and old hippies and cool youth. I had the best milk shake there I have ever had.

And my all time favorite

I traveled on with a salmon burger (so good) to go from Garberville and continued on the road to my state park. It got a bit scary because it was getting late (after seven) and foggy and I was hoping the Internet stuff I read was current as I passed a sign that said “save Richardson Grove Park”.
I made it there just before nightfall (that’s what I get for starting so late) and I finished the day at a hiker biker site in an old growth redwood grove. I was the only biker there!

I noticed when I paid my five bucks at the ranger entrance that the guy had colored pencils on the counter and asked him about that. His name was Thomas and he then proceeded toi show me every drawing in his sketch book and even left his station for a bit to go to his truck and show me his largest drawing which was on the back of park forms all scotch taped together. He had never taken an art course and simply drew what was in front of him. His stuff had a lot of atmosphere and he was nice to be around. He had a bit of what I’ll call tree presence. There was no hurry about him and his drawings took a lot of time.

I thought it was interesting how artists always seem to need their work to be seen by someone else and what would it be like if the act of just creating it was enough. ?

He (in his 20s) and I talked for so long that it was dark before I had my tent up and I never could find the showers.

The next morning when I tried to photo my site I had the same dust problem.

The campground host told me I could continue on the biker path to get to hwy one so I did. I thought it was going to be a small bike path but in fact it turned out to be a hiker trail through the words which was difficult for my bicycle. It got smaller and smaller and then my phone died and it was a little scary because I wasn’t sure exactly if I was going the right way and the path was getting smaller and smaller.
When I made it out of the path onto the road there was a sign that warned me about bears and mountain lions and wild elk. The sign said not to hike alone. Then the sign told you what to do step-by-step if you were attacked by a wild animal which basically was to stand up and fight for yourself as in try to scare it away.
Now on the road with the park signs I go to the rest area in the bathroom. I don’t stay in there long but when I get out there is a small herd of wild elk between me and the road.
That takes a while but eventually I slip by them and am on my way.

I forgot to say that when I woke up it was raining so I packed up my tent but in a very messy way. It was all covered with Pine needles and other stuff.
I have some random photographs from today but not a lot because it was rainy and cold and cold and rainy and misty and moisty. Therefore not so great for photographs.

I am in Humbolt county now and the county fair is going on so hotels are packed full and RV sites are hard to know about until you see them so I booked a hotel while I was in Eureka huddled by a fake fire in Starbucks. There are no campgrounds near here in Fortuna. I paid good money for a huge hotel room and I was very happy to be dry and warm. There was a fantastic health food store in Eureka where I stocked up and had a great meal in my room heated up by the microwave and all. I also showered my tent clean and set it up by the heater and dried it all out. I did laundry and got this blog up to date.

By the end of the day it got sunny but I was still grateful for this very nice hotel room. Yesterday was a seventy mile day. Today will be around sixty. I hope to go through Garberville and end up at Richardson Grove State Park biker site. It is supposed to have even more amazing redwoods.
Ah…

River leaves early as he’s on the home stretch and going 101 and now doing hundred mile days. We are going to get together in Berkeley and he wants to talk to Sa about colleges and help her be less stressful because he knows how horrible the process is!
When I leave Harris Beach for some reason Ido not manage to get breakfast in Brookings. I want a restaurant with WiFi and I can’t find one. Before I know it the town is over.

This place sold driftwood letters. In the next picture the wood spells out DRIFTWOOD.

Same thing food wise happened to me in Crescent City. My phone had died so I needed an outlet, preferably with WiFi. Therefore, I was in Starbucks researching when Allison from the biker campground pulls up. She is in her late twenties and going to SF solo like me. She tells me about Prairie Creek campground and we agree to meet there.
I went to the bike store to borrow a pedal wrench to change back into my cleats. The toe clips were not letting my feet be far enough forward on the pedals and I was getting bad knee pain in both knees and the climbs were harder so I changed back to cleats and am much happier.
Then I went to the hardware store to get a mat to sleep on as mine was now deflated all the way and I couldn’t find a restaurant that was right but I did stock up at the grocery stores as best I could.

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The roads in California are awful especially compared to Oregon. There is often just a tiny shoulder and sometimes none. What makes it worse is that the white line is bumpy to alert drivers if they go over it so as a biker you can't even ride the line but have to be in the lane if there's no shoulder.
On top of that there was major road construction going on and it was on the downside of the Klamath climb so it was really scary going down. I met up with Allison again there. The construction guys wanted us to wait till all the cars had gone before we got to go. After ten minutes of cars we just went. Later we met biker guys who were told to go ahead of all the. Cars!
After the big Klamath climb and construction, I took Drury Scenic route. It was out of this world insanely beautiful. The redwood trees surrounded me and I felt like I was in a different time zone.
Some of those trees are hundreds of thousands of years old!!! Check it out in Wikipedia if you don't believe me.

In front of a tree twelve feet in diameter it’s just impossible to understand on any level. I just kept thinking “Oh my God” and that was about it.

It was freezing cold by the end of the day going through the redwoods. It had been cold and cloudy all day but by night fall it was the shivering kind. Coming through the tress at dusk was magical beyond belief.

When I got to the biker campground, there were four other guys from Harris beach already there. I joined up at their picnic table. Two of the guys were Canadian. One of them started on the East coast. Everyone’s destination was San Francisco.
We were all sorry to be out of Oregon with the road shoulders, espresso stands and free camp showers. My food was crappy next to theirs as they all had camping stoves but I was OK with a sorry dinner because what I was really looking forward to was a warm shower. However when I took my shower there was no warm water and I felt like I was in Guatemala. I got over it quickly and was happy to snuggle up in my sleeping bag in my tent with my book even though my new mat was not very comfortable. What can you expect from $12 at hardware store?

Well, as I was taking this photograph…

Just outside the restaurant where I was writing, this guy slides up

Enter River. How cool is he? He’s just (as in June) graduated from Cornell and has biked from Cornell (complete with tassel from graduation cap swinging from pannier) to the west coast and now down the west coast to Berkeley. Where did he go to high school? The infamous Berkeley High like my kids! Long story short, it was exit Derek enter River (his given name was Anthony). He tells me about this cool camp site and we agree to meet there that night and share costs before he goes into the restaurant for breakfast and I, tummy full, ride on.

After a mornings ride, just as I was taking this photo again River slides up. And I get the ding-dong doorbell sound of a text arriving.

We are just outside of the seaside town Gold Beach and River asks if I’d like to lunch together and I say yes. He consults Yelp and decides that the port harbor cafe has about the amount we want to eat at the price we want to pay so we go there. It’s a great family place on the water. In there I remember the text and it’s Derek in the same town at Subway. I tell him where we are but I know he wants to do fast food as he is going for a hundred mile day to make it to Crescent City because he wants to get to California today. I feel no such urgency so we don’t connect.
After lunch, River and I again agree to meet at Harris Beach, Oregon state park just outside Brookings, OR. He goes on ahead and I bike along stopping now and then to photo.

And here’s a photo of my best friend Silver

These next two photos were taken from the highest bridge in Oregon.

I made it to Harris Beach where I went to the

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River in his extraordinary cool Yelpishness ordered a pizza to be delivered to our campsite!!! We shared it with this biker named Greg from Alaska.

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The whole biker camp was cool. There were thirty bikers there. Lots of us going alone but hooking up with each other. There was a lot of comparing gear, maps and touring strategies. It was fun. Lots of folks were going alone to SF.
Here’s a shot of packing up camp in the morning.