46km out of 1802km so far

We woke up, had breakfast and packed our stuff. We spend an extra hour at the campsite to explore the area and look for nice viewpoints. At around 11am we headed off south, to the near by town of Trinidad for a second breakfast. The route  went via the woods for a bit and then back to the coast with the typical rock formations. The spectacular scenery made us stop on every other turn to take photos and admire the view.

Somehow all of us felt a little lazy with such a nice weather and we knew we wouldn’t go that far today. People were talking about Arcata, the next town on our way. Some of the cyclists had friends to spend the night with, so we all decided to spend the night there. We barely rode on 101 today, as around the area there are many smaller scenic roads, but also bike trails that kept us away from the heavy traffic and let us enjoy our ride.

We got into town and our first stop was in the bike shop. Most of us needed a few things for maintenance. I got a new chain to replace the old one, before it stretches too much and ruins the cassette. Arcata is a cool little town, very relaxed, full of hippies and everybody seemed very friendly. They are all about supporting the local markets and I noticed there are no chain restaurant or shops here at all. Next stop for all of us was a pub with 20 taps of local beer. We spend most of the evening eating and having a few drinks.

In the pub, me Torri and Matt had a long conversation with a local who is also a cyclist and he gave us many tips for the route further down. In the end Tod invited over to his place for some more beer and bike talk. His garage was packed with bikes of all sorts and tools of any kind. I took the opportunity to change my chain. Actually everybody else was so eager to help out, so they ended up doing it for me!

At that point I hadn’t set my tent yet. Torri and Matt were heading to one of their friend’s place. I ended up catching up with Garry and Liz and we all set up our tents behind the bike shop. The guys at the shop had kindly let the back porch open for us to, so we camp and spend the night there for free.

 

93.4km out of 1756km

After a storm you tend to appreciate the sunshine a lot more and today there were many good things to appreciate and make this day one of the best.

The storm was going hard all night long, but by the morning the sun was out and the sky was blue. We all woke up, cleaned up our mess, said goodbye to Katey and left the church relatively early, as we were all looking forward for the day ahead of us.

On the road we got separated, some people went for a second breakfast, I went to look for some maps in the tourist office. I got some supplies for lunch and continued south. The route today was exceptional. Half of it was right by a monochromatic coast due to the residual mist from the storm.

The rest of it was riding within the giants of Red Woods. Right after leaving the coast, there was a long climb. At the top I caught up with the rest of the cyclists. Garry and Liz were still having breakfast, but Ben, Emily, Megan, Matt, Mike, Sara, Hanna and Torii were all there. The last three are writing on the blazing butts blog. We had lunch and went down the slope. The descent within the hoods was just magical. We were surrounded by 100 meter tall trees, some of which 1500 years old. Trees, leaves and tarmac were steaming as the sun beams were penetrating the thick forest canopy, hitting the wet ground, adding a mystical element to the ride, together with a fresh smell.

The weather conditions were just perfect with 20c degrees, a nice sunshine and a touch of tail wind. You can’t ask for more when cycling and that made it possible to cover a long distance without much effort. We went through a couple of small hippie towns, had some ice cream and continued south.

By 5pm we had covered 90km and decided to call it a day as we were approaching one of the State Parks of the area, Patric Point. At the hikers-bikers section of the campground, we met a few more people that were hit by the storm. This guy had abandoned all his camping stuff there trying to find shelter. These two other guys were hiking in the area and camped right by a creak. They woke up and the water had covered half their tent. We set tents at and immediately went on a short trail to the sea front. What an amazing view, with the massive oceanic waves crashing on the two monoliths right in front of us.

After dinner we went back down there to experience the spectacle under the bright star lit sky.

What a day!