The Mysteries of a Golden State
Please hold off on donations for Kids with Cancer until Wednesday! There is a doner who has agreed to MATCH all the donations made on that day!
Total distance traveled: 668 miles
Elevation gain: 33,945 (we are now at cruising altitude...)
Yep, I missed a day. Wasn't intentional but given the craziness over the last two days, I'm not gong to beat myself up too badly over it. I'm in weird spot now--I have two days to talk about and yet I need to hold true to not making this into a novel. So in a large swoop, I am going to give you all the Cliff Notes catch-up blog and bring you to where we are right now: in a travel trailer next to a lagoon in the middle of nowhere.
OK, Gold Beach. Had a great stay but left early due to weather that was supposed to be hitting Crescent City around 3:00. We left at 8:00 thinking that would give us a good safety margin. And we made great time working down the coast. In fact, we made it the 30 miles to Brookings and it was only 11:00! We stopped in at the famous Mattie's and it was our NEW favorite meal on the trip so far! And at the end of it? One of the waitresses (or maybe the owner?) picked up our check for us! Seriously, an awesome food place. After eating, we had another 5 miles to the California border: our biggest milestone yet.
Tangent time. I am from California but a have to say, I have a love/hate relationship with my state. After having traveled though OR and WA and seeing all the signs about being friendly to cyclists, and signs about beautifying their states, we were met in California with "click it or ticket" signs Cal Trans notices and more of that nature. It just had a different feel to it. And then, as if to rub it in, after we crossed over the border, there was some smells coming from nearby farms that were absolutely revolting. Katelyn and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Welcome home. The redwoods could not show up fast enough.
A couple miles past the border, the rain began. Early. We put our heads down and pressed on--it was just sprinkling but we wanted to make sure we got in before it really came down. We had a church member who provided us with a rental property of hers that was right on the beach and so we had a great stay and were even able to do a load of laundry without a sketchy laundromat! The rain finally hit hard about an hour after we got in and gave everything a good soak that night. Good thing the local rib place did deliveries!
Now I have become ridiculously connected to the weather.com app. I look at it on this trip like a teenager looks at Instagram. And all day on Saturday, it was calling for rain. That was the day we needed to go 72 miles to Trinidad over our largest climbs yet. Plus, having seen Trees of Mystery signs for the past 200 miles (seriously, these guys know how to advertise!), we really wanted to stop there. I made the decision that we would try and come up with a backup plan just in case we didn't make it the entire way. At 5:30 am, I woke up and saw that the weather had a break--partly cloudy until 10:00. My ride partner usually sleeps until 9:30 but I woke her at 6:00 and we were out the door at 6:30! We stayed cold but dry all the way to Trees of Mystery--17 miles up the road. And then, not 30 minutes after we got there the rains poured down! And I mean it dumped!
Another church member (I love having great people all over the place!) had offered to let us use their place if we couldn't make it down to Trinidad and having gotten 17 miles in and seeing the rain dumping, I didn't want us to get caught in a bad situation. To make it worse, we didn't have cell coverage to look up the weather for the rest of the day. Instead, we waited for a lull in the rain, checked out Trees of Mystery (still a great spot) and had breakfast. Then, we looked for an opening in the sky and took off for our closer spot to stay the night--I wasn't going to try for Trinidad any longer. As we traveled, we fortunately stayed dry and rode through some of the best redwood groves I have ever seen. We eventually made it to Lori and Tim Connell's Land. Lori fed us a nice meal and. set us up to use the travel trailer on the lower end of their property--we were glamping! The crazy thing? All the rain that was supposed to hit on Saturday never did come. In fact, the remainder of the day had sunny blue skies--just another one of the mysteries of our trip!
A couple final thoughts:
1. Our butts are fine. The chafing has gone away and I think our bodies just know what to do. Same for the legs.
2. The entire coast is one big mountain range. We climb a TON of hills. That won't end anytime soon.
3. We have some of the most random tan lines. I will share a couple pictures tomorrow.
4. There are so many good people in the world. Sometimes it is just putting yourself in a position to find them. Goodness brings out goodness.
5. My ride partner is still doing excellent! She really does love the positive messages people send her, especially from her friends back home. Those are the things I can see brighten her day when she is tired from a long ride.
OK, today's ride. Sunny day, riding into Fortuna. Somewhere around 60 miles today to make up for the miles we didn't ride yesterday. Slowly, we are putting more of California in our rear view mirror!
Seriously, had a great time traveling through the state of Oregon. Very bike friendly!
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| The Connell family took us in last minute and let us stay the night in the travel trailer. Another bailout on the road! |
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| After waiting out the rain, we pushed on trying to dodge the storms. When we stopped, it made us wonder if we could have kept going? The blue skies were not in the weather report earlier in the day! |
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| Nothing wild about these Elk at the current moment! |
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| One of my favorite pictures so far on the trip from the redwoods--glad we caught this area between showers! |
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| For all you environmentalists out there, we chose a dead tree that had been cut down to carve our legacy into. |
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| Trees of Mystery pics coming up. Mandatory photos include this bear, the Indian Statue, Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox. |
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| I will never look at my tiny puny little chainsaw the same way again! |
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| This was one of the coolest displays at the Trees of Mystery. It was in the "Mystery Shack" and was an interactive sand display that would allow you to shift the topography at will. We spent a lot of time making mountains, then oceans, then lakes and so on |
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| They are just bigger up here... |
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| The lightning bolt tree. Straight up weird... |
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| Always Katelyn's favorite sign! |
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| this is the kind of thing that wreaks havoc on an itinerary! I must have refreshed the weather app 100 times looking for it to clear up! |
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| I get that we are not even halfway done yet, but the psychology behind crossing this border was a huge boost! |
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| I typically don't show the places we eat, but if you are lucky enough to be traveling through Brookings, OR and you don't stop here for the red white and blue French toast, you are just plain missing out! |
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| This ride is definitely not a fashion show--I can tell you that much! |
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| It's wet but it's pretty! |
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| Notice the roads behind us--it was a wet day at the Trees of Mystery! |
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