california | ch3 - blog

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.

Katey and the Church

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.

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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.

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Red carpet

A tall tree

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Good parking spot

Going down the hill

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.

We are open

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Elks by the road

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.

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

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What a day!

52.5km out of 1663km so far

Last night has been the worst so far in the trip. When I went to sleep, there was just a light rain together with strong winds. Nothing to worry about as I was well sheltered by the trees around me and I had already been through worst rainfalls. I went to sleep wearing my earplugs, but an hour later I woke up wondering why I could still hear the rain. I took my earplugs out and realize bathtabs of water were landing on my tent. I looked around and no water had penetrated my tent, but instantly realised that there was tons of water under it. The soil was hard-packed and wasn’t absorbing the water fast enough. It almost felt like sleeping on a waterbed, as everything within the tent was rocking back and forth each time I was moving around the tent. I open the inside zipper and realized my tent was floating into a nice little lake of water, at least 10cm deep. Both pairs of shoes I had left outside together with my flipflops were fully submerged.

Mayday mayday…

I was trying to comprehend what was happening and started thinking my options.

Plan A, stay in the tent, pretend everything is fine and try to get some sleep. That wasn’t much of an option as the rain was going strong, without any signs of stopping, so I had to leave. I put all my stuff into my waterproof panniers, put my already soaked rain gear on and at 0:45am, I abandoned ship.

Plan B, look for an emergency phone, or knock on the host’s RV to see if he had an idea about what to do. Both of the hosts looked unimpressed with me waking them up and they didn’t have anything to offer. The campsite had no indoor spaces, other than the washrooms and the showers.

Plan C, crash in one of these two rooms. Not ideal at all, but there was simply no other option for me. It was way too late at night and stormy to go out and look for a motel or something. I went in at the showers, put my mat on the thin bench by the wall and squeezed myself into the sleeping bag.

Could you please pass me the shampoo?

Worst sleep ever. Sometimes I was asking myself what the hell was I doing in there, others I was just laughing about the whole situation. I managed to sleep an hour or two. I couldn’t turn the lights off, the bench was just uncomfortable and there were many noises around to keep me awake. I gave up at around 7am when one of the campground’s hosts turned up. I packed my stuff and went back to my tent to see the aftermath. The rain had stopped, but it seemed like the storm had hit the campground really hard, as one of the trees was down. The tent was still at its place, but the base was full of mud. I washed as much as I could, loaded everything to my bike and left the campground.

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I just wanted to get out of there and get to the first Californian city Crescent, where I knew there is a warmshower place to stay, together with some fellow cyclists. There was no rain when I left, but the head wind was strong. I needed to cover 40-50km to the next city. Despite my effort to dry my shoes using the air-dryer, my shoes were still wet, so I didn’t bother putting my overshoes. But of course the rain came up again and at some point I was feeling like I was wearing fish tanks for shoes.

Misty coast

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I barely stopped on the way, as I wanted to keep moving to stay warm and get to that place as soon as possible. I have to point out that today I crossed to California, so that’s it with Oregon. It’s pity the weather has been so bad. Locals say it’s not normal for that time of the year, so I guess I was just unlucky to hit 3 storms within the past 3-4 weeks.

Welcome to California, where the sun always shines!

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Just after noon I got to Crescent City and I managed to locate my host. Warmshowers is basically a website where various people around the world are willing to host cyclists and provide a basic accommodation, usually for free. First time I am using it and it was a real treat. The place I am staying is St Paul’s Episcopal Church and today they are hosting about a dozen cyclists in one of the side rooms of the church. I am not religious, but as I entered the room, it almost felt like entering the heavens after been in hell. They welcomed me, they instantly offered coffee, snacks and lunch. I had already met with most of the cyclists before and a few hours later Garry turned up as well. So familiar faces all around. I had my shower, a nap, did some laundry, dried everything out and I was all set. We cooked some dinner at the big kitchen and ate all together. Katey the host came around and offered some home made brownies. My moral has just been restored!