We're back on the road, making progress. It's been a bit slow so far, with some pretty challenging climbs right off the start on our new leg of the trip, but we're getting down the coast and feeling pretty good about our new equipment and mission (to finish on bikes for the people who have supported us).

The drive down to Crescent City was pleasant, if largely uneventful. We were glad for much of the trip that we had the uhaul instead of being on the bikes, as it was hilly and not too scenic. We had envisioned hitting the coast at Reedsport and being along the Pacific the whole way down. Not so much. We didn't see the coast until we hit Port Orford, almost 80 miles to the south. That would have been a long day and a half on the bike, and we would have been frustrated at not seeing the ocean along the way. It must be said that when we did finally see it, the view was great.


As it happened, we drove all the way to Crescent City, slept in the back of the truck in a campground outside of town, then stocked up at the natural food store and headed south. There's a hill right outside of town that would have given us fits at our peak of riding this summer, and we've had the better part of three weeks off now, between the RV, the Bus, the slow days in Portland, and then having the bike stolen in Eugene. So we're a little soft, and this hill was a bit toug, climbing about 1200 feet in about 3 miles. That took us a long time.

On the other side of the hill we descended down into a town called Klamath, then into the Northern reaches of the Redwood State/National Park. We decided to take a little detour to the coast instead of staying on the main road, to head for a little campground called Flint Ridge. This seemed like a good idea until we figured out that the Ridge was a bit of a climb, and it all happened to be gravel road. So we grudgingly walked the bikes to the top, only to find that the actual campsite was about a quarter of a mile hike into the woods off of the road. We can't really hike with the trailers, so we decided to camp right on the roadside, where there was a small parking lot for the campground.

It turned out to be a pretty good choice, outside of the tent being covered in water from the ocean mists. It was good sleeping with the crash of the waves nearby, and we had a good downhill ride out of the camp.

There were a couple more tough hills for us early in the morning, made harder by our legs having not recovered from the day before. But we slowly made our way over them and entered what is no doubt my favorite piece of riding over this whole trip: Prairie Creek State Park's Scenic Byway. You wouldn't know from the name, but that is a road through the heart of Redwood country. 6 or 7 miles of dense, virgin Redwood forest as far as you can see. Trees up to 300 feet tall on both sides of the road, dwarfing us and the few cars around us.

It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. All I can do is share some woefully inadequate pictures, taken from the back of my bike (in that second pic, Melissa is the little dark speck at the bottom of the tree):

We made it all the way to McKinleyville last night, tenting in a random field near the airport because it was getting dark. This morning we rode to Eureka, and I'm going to wrap up because we need to hit the road again to make up some miles.

We're doing well, but we need to pick up speed to get to San Fran on time. Peace.