Days 64-74: Benbow to Berkeley

Day 64, after sleeping like never before in an amazing king bed at the Benbow Inn, we leisurely get ourselves up, eat breakfast, and hit the road again. We roll up and over a bunch of hills. It’s cold in the morning, but warms up a lot during the day. After our Cup o’ Noodle experience, we hit the first market we find, attached to an RV park. It’s mostly standard fare, except for the steaks wrapped in bacon that Russ finds in the freezer. Yes, you read that right. They’re frozen solid, so they bump along the rest of the ride on the back of my bike and slowly defrost in the sun. We camp at Standish-Hickey State Park and meet a few other bike tourists. We also watch the last episode of Season 3 of ‘Dexter’ on the laptop, so we begin to ponder what show to download next for those evenings when we just want to do nothing.

Day 65, we’re up early, to conquer Leggett hill. We stop in the little town of Leggett, which has a market and a post office and not much else. We buy up supplies at the market and are astounded by how expensive they are (easily, the most expensive small market on the coast!!). The ride from Leggett to the coast takes you up and over two good climbs. The first peaks at 1800 feet (starting at 1000), then you roar down to almost sea level, then the second takes you up to around 800 feet. They’re slow, well-graded climbs, but they take their toll, as there’s no shoulder and a lot of logging trucks. We hit the coast in grand manner… tall cliffs, strong gusty winds, majestic views. We take a few breaks to enjoy being back on the coast and then continue the rest of the rollers to MacKerricher State Park. And we both decide that it’s these last rollers (not the previous two slow climbs) that kill you. We’re exhausted when we roll into camp, but meet three other cycle tourists and share a campfire and stories with them.

On Day 66, still tired from the day before, we get up slowly and ride in to Ft. Bragg (just 2 miles away, down a beautiful path that was converted from an old logging road). We find a coffee shop with great coffee and an amazing belgian waffle, and then we explore the town (which is adorable and full of great art-stuffs). We roll the few miles down the highway to Mendocino and poke around there for a few hours as well. Then we call it a day and pitch camp at Van Damme State Park (just a few miles south of Mendocino). It’s astoundingly windy in the hiker/biker area and we watch our campfire nervously as it whips around, until we’re just too tired of the wind and we put out the fire and crawl in the tent.

It’s much less windy when we wake up the morning of Day 67, so we have a morning fire to chase away some of the cold. And then we roll out. In Elk, we stumble onto a fantastic little diner and enjoy a second breakfast. (Ah, the joys of bike touring!) The route is full of ups and downs, and we’re beginning to realize that this is excruciatingly common along this stretch of hwy 1.

We roll into Manchester State Park and set up camp, waiting for the camp hosts to come back to break our $20 bill so we can pay for our spot. The State Park is kind of bleak, with just pit toilets and nobody else around. Russ rolls up to the KOA next door to pick up a juice at their store and comes back with grand news… the KOA only charges $9 per person (for cyclists) and they have a hot tub and showers! Since we haven’t paid yet at the state park, we pack everything up and move up the road. Sorry state park, but the hot tub just sounded too good to pass up. As it turns out, all the other bike tourists stopping in that area already knew about the KOA, so there are seven of us there.

Day 68, we’re up, slowly, to head up and over more rolling hills. In Anchor Bay, we run across one of the best small markets along the coast. And in Gualala, we find a coffee shop with internet and take a long break. We’re tempted to call it a day at the county park outside of town, but decide to push another 20 miles instead. The scenery is beautiful south of Gualala, as most of the traffic begins to drop off, but we’re exhausted by the time we roll into Salt Point State Park. We’re glad for the KOA the night before, as Salt Point doesn’t have showers. But, the camp hosts give us free wood and we stay up late talking with Paul, a cycle tourist from England who’s headed all the way down to Argentina.

Day 69, we’re beginning to get used to all the rolling hills, when it gets kicked up a notch. The road is now right along the cliff, with no shoulder and no guardrail. Traffic comes in waves behind us, due to road construction, so we’re mostly able to let them all pass and ride in peace. The road pitches steeply upward for a few miles, levels out, and then goes screaming downhill in a twisting fashion we haven’t seen before. The hairpin turns make it hard to go too fast, but we enjoy the craziness of the road. In Jenner, we watch seals play in the water, where the Russian River meets the sea, and then we have lunch. We camp at Bodega Dunes State Park, in a totally vacant hiker/biker area, in the sand. We’re tired, so we take it easy that night, eating dinner in the nearby town of Bodega Bay.

Day 70 is a rest day, and we are both glad to take a break from all the rolling hills. We sleep in, then make pancakes and lots of coffee. I spread out my jewelry studio on the picnic table, while Russ hunkers down over the computer. In the afternoon, other tourists (the next wave!) start to trickle in. By the time we go to bed, there are 11 other tourists crammed in one little hiker/biker area. We continue to be amazed at how many people are still touring this late in the season.

On Day 71, our Krebbs map (that was gifted to us by another couple back in the Redwoods) routes us off hwy 1 for awhile and we are treated to quiet farmland. There are steep hills, but there are also cows and quail and beautiful views. We join hwy 1 again and follow it along Tomales Bay (which, we learned a couple days earlier, was formed by the San Andreas Fault). We roll into Point Reyes and are delighted by such a cute town. They have a bookstore and I finally find the novel I’d heard about on NPR and have been searching for over the past week and a half. We pick up groceries and poke around town a bit before heading off to Samuel P. Taylor State Park. There’s a gnarly climb on the way there and I curse my derailleur yet again for refusing to shift down into my lowest gears (I have to get off and move it manually – and we fix this when we roll into camp). We’re delighted by the wooded beauty of the park and the fact that the hiker/biker area here is only $3 per person (instead of the $5 we’ve been paying elsewhere in California). We stuff all of our everything that smells into the critter boxes because the raccoons are big and fat and completely unabashed in their attempts to eat your food. We laugh as the folks in the next campsite over chase a raccoon up a tree, laugh as it hisses at them, and take photos (in the dark).

On Day 72, we decide to just hang out at Samuel Taylor for another night. We’re only a day out of the Bay Area and we haven’t yet figured out what we’re doing or where we’re staying. We go into Lagunitas for groceries, and Russ spends the afternoon using the wifi at the cafe next door, while I return to the campsite and work on more jewelry. We share a campfire with a couple from Germany (traveling from Alaska to Argentina) and swap ridiculous stories of being on the road. (And laugh at the folks next to us who chase the raccoon up the tree yet again.)

On Day 73, we get up early and just throw our stuff on the bike, in order to have breakfast in Lagunitas. It’s amazingly worth not having coffee immediately, because the food at the cafe is some of the best we’ve yet to stumble on! The road climbs gradually for several miles before gifting us with a screamer of a downhill on the other side. It’s Saturday morning, so we pass group after group of roadies on their weekend rides. In Fairfax, we stumble onto Biketoberfest and meet the Rivendell folks, as well as several others who are interested in our trip. Then we stumble onto a new cooperative bike shop (The Bicycle Works) just down the road in San Anselmo, and we feel like we’re definitely entering another bike mecca.

In Sausalito, we stop for coffee and learn that it’s fleet week in San Francisco and the Blue Angels are flying over the bay today. This causes some crazy traffic as people are stopped all over the road to watch the show (and then trying to get out of town when it’s over). We watch for a bit at the North side of the Golden Gate Bridge, then make our way over the bridge. We ask at least 4 people, including a CHP officer, where we’re supposed to go and everyone seems as clueless as we are. So we go for it, on the sidewalk, and later meet the bridge patrol who tells us that we’re on the wrong side of the bridge, but not to worry about it because nobody ever sees the sign (!!). I think, well, then, make the sign more obvious. We get to the other side of the bridge, successfully, without trampling any of the hundreds of pedestrians, and then try to figure out our way to the BART station. Traffic is insane and we get lost and it takes way longer than it should, so we’re tired and kind of cross-eyed from culture shock because of all the people when we finally make it to Berkeley. We meet our hosts, Adam and Julia, shower, find some dinner, and crash early.

We spend the next day in Berkeley, buying too much at REI and going for a beautiful ride out into the Berkeley hills with Adam and Julia. It’s a delightful day and we’re thrilled that the rain that’s been forecasted holds off while we’re camped in their back yard.

Hitting the Berkeley Hills

We spent the day today running some errands (AKA spending too much money at REI). Laura picked up some new cool looking camp pants and a
down jacket for the impending cold of winter. I got some knickknacks, most notably a new
LED lantern to test out.

After our pockets were sufficiently drained for the day our great hosts Adam and Julia took us on ride through the Berkeley hills. We went up Spruce to Tilden Park to Inspiration Point. It was a nice enjoyable grade without 85lbs of gear on the bike. We quickly left the urban feel of the city and were into the hills on a road that followed the ridge line. Once we hit Tilden Park, we took a little path into Rivendell country – lots of rolling hills and grass.

It was beautiful scenery and a great way to see a different side of Berkely we’ve never seen before.

A Bikeable Feast

For the first few weeks of our journey, Laura and I were travelling inland going North. While the riding was pleasant through empty country roads, it was beginning to feel a bit lonely being the only bicycle tourists for days and days. Here we were, fresh from selling most of our earthly possessions, on a path that seemed crazy by modern standards and lacking the familiar security of having a community. We wondered where our fellow wheeled compatriots were?

After leaving Eugene we rode to the Pacific coast via Smith River. Once we got there, we found our nomadic family!

There was Chris from England, bearded and fond of pancakes for breakfast; Thomas, an urban farmer from Portland riding east to rejoin his girlfriend; Victor and Jane a couple that owned a coffeeshop in Bandon, who were on their first bike tour and were inspired after seeing the yearly wheeled migration of tourists passing their shop; Nils and Caroline from Germany who had cycled from Alaska and were heading towards Argentina; Scott who was laid off from an IT job and cycled from Florida to Canada and was now heading south to Patagonia and beyond; Paul a programer from London whose contract expired and decided to ride from Alaska to Argentina instead of finding another job; Sam from Bellingham, a live sound technician who decided to move to Oakland via bicycle, etc.,

There were several others as well, names and faces and bikes that touched and enriched our lives for a few hours or a few days and then moved forward. Everyone is on their own unique trajectory, moving at their own pace, but every so often you come into synch with a few people and you ride together for a few days and there is that pleasant feeling of coming into a new campground or town and being greeted by a familiar face – it’s a feeling that we’ve all but left behind, the feeling of “home.”

Riding this late in the “season”, the types of riders we are encountering are different from those that travel in the middle of the summer. Most of the riders we have met are travelling for an indefinite amount of time, several months to several years. The people we are meeting aren’t on vacation — they are travelling. They move without a set itinerary. Curiousity and serendipty control their movements more than the quick disappearing act of accrued vacation time.

The very social nature of riding the Pacific coast has been a pleasant surprise. It has made the miles less monotonous and the act of setting up home every night in unfamiliar places more bearable when you have an extended family to share a campfire and meal with.

Interestingly, there is an unspoken protocol among many travellers. You have your time together at camp but most of the time it is bad form to make plans outside of that. Most prefer to keep commitments to a minimal, with the phrase “see you down the road” as formal as it gets.

There is something beautiful and beautifully sad about it all at the same time. Like others, we have chosen this life to be independent and to move to our own internal rhythyms, so to make plans and set appointments is anethema to this instinctual desire for absolute freedom. At the same time, we are social creatures and desire community and kinship, so when fellow travellers DO meet it is with quick openness and directness. It’s understood that we’re not going to share much time together so let us cut to the chase and enjoy the time we have.

Travelling is accelerated living. When you are on the move, you are free to drop the pretense of conventional conversations, you form fast friendships and bonds. You share your dreams and insights with virutal strangers – the sort of conversations that may take weeks or months to broach with other people at home. And yet, for the comfort this affords, you are also very consciously aware of the temporal nature of it all. The beauty of the road is fleeting. The pain of the climb is temporary. These wonderful moments with the people you meet are quickly rendered into memories.

You may decide to ride 40 miles the next day and your new found friend may push for 60. You may take a rest day and the nomadic family you’ve been riding with pedals onward. Your mobile community has dispersed once again like sand in the wind and you are alone and your thoughts momentarily wander to where your wheeled bretheren are – then YOU move on. It is folly to hang on for too long, but that’s not to say you are not momentarily saddened by the leaving of these virtual strangers.

Laura and I have been enjoying the company. The first pack of riders we were moving with is far ahead us after we took a few rest days. On occasion, we wonder where they are. Is Chris still making pancakes? Has Thomas replaced the broken string on his mandolin. Did Sam, with his bum knee, make it over Legget?

We know that they are on their own trajectories and are learning their own lessons about life. We wish you well, our fellow travelers!

Photos and Captions

A few more photos and captions to fill in the trip…

While in Garberville, we pick up a General Delivery package and get our Kelty Noah’s Tarp. Our hosts in Eugene loved it on their US circumnavigation, especially during the winter. It provides a nice dry area even in pouring rain!

Fellow traveller, Sam, formerly from Bellingham but moving to Oakland. We spent a few great hours talking politics, travel and zombies!

Typical beautiful coastal road we’ve been riding on the last few days!

A rare picture of me! It has been cool so that means wool! I’m wearing one of my favorite wool jerseys by Earth, Wind and Rider.

Laura tackling a ridiculously steep switchback on the 1 in Sonoma County.

Riding through some of the beautiful grassland on the coast.

Day 55-63: The Redwoods! (Harris Beach S.P. to the Benbow Inn)

Day 55, we wake up with a brilliant idea for making pancakes: on the paella pan, over the fire. It works brilliantly and we are thrilled. It’s good fuel for crossing the border into California. We follow the Adventure Cycling Association route into Crescent City, which routes us off Hwy 101 along winding, scenic, backroads. The day is sunny and beautiful. In Crescent City, we try to find the AAA office to get maps, only to learn that it has recently closed. Fortunately, there is a National Parks Information Center and they give us great maps of the Redwoods area, including a few secret tips for getting off the main road. We ride around town looking for a coffee shop with wireless internet, but are completely unsuccessful (apprently they’ve all closed too?), and we end up charging batteries in front of Safeway instead. From Crescent City, we ride up Elk Valley Road to Hwy 199 to Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. We’re treated to a surprising and delightful downhill through the redwoods that takes us all the way to the campground. We get a hiker/biker site, at the far end of the park, away from the other campsites, along the river. We are the only cycle tourists here tonight, but there are two girls next to us who have hitchhiked from Seattle. Bear boxes are provided and we stick all our stuff in them, just to be sure.

We sleep in a bit on Day 56, knowing that our mileage will be short. We’re determined to make use of our entire $8 bundle of wood, so we have abreakfast fire and make more pancakes. We decide to take the dirt road through the redwoods to Hwy 101, instead of going back along the route that we took into the park – and we are treated to an amazing ride. The surface is hard-packed gravel, extremely ridable. Cars rumble slowly down the road to look at the trees, but RVs and trailers are forbidden, so it is quiet and highly enjoyable. For the second time, on a gravel road, I hit a bump and one of my front panniers flies off. This time, I am fortunate that nothing breaks. I strap it on with a bungee and we roll down the rest of the hill. When we hit Hwy 101, it is a long climb ahead of us, with virtually no shoulder. Most of the time, drivers are polite and simply pass in the other lane. A few people honk. One dumptruck comes way too close. I ponder how much money it would take to fund an interurban bike trail, off the road, for all the cyclists that explore the area. A few miles north of Klamath, we pull off at the Redwoods Hostel for the night. We have heard that this hostel is constantly ranked one of the best in the world, and we decide to check it out before it closes (permanently, unless they can get the funding to retrofit it for earthquakes).

Day 57, we’re up early so we can spend a bunch of time online at the Forest Café down the road (the closest internet). The Forest Café is across the street from larger-than-life statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, so many many photos must be taken. (For what it’s worth, breakfast at the Forest Café was excellent and a steal!) We roll through a few small towns on the 101, stopping only to get groceries, then turn off onto the Newton B. Drury Scenic Route. It kicks off with a good climb, but then you’re rewarded with miles of downhill, followed by many more miles of a gradual downhill trend that lets you just coast and coast through a dense forest of redwoods. In a word… amazing! (And worth all the stress of being on the busy coast route.) We pull in to the Hiker/Biker camping at Elk Prairie Campground and meet up with many of the same tourists we met back up the road a few days earlier… so there’s a big reunion! And then we all stand in the grass at the edge of the prairie and watch the elk across the field (and all the crazy people who get out of their cars and walk way too close to take a photo). All through the night, we hear the sounds of male elk fighting just a few hundred feet from our tents.

Day 58, I am startled when I wake up by the Nixon mask hanging on the tent of our neighbor (a through-hiker who later tells us that it’s to help ward off evil spirits!). We roll out of camp, with fingers crossed that the elk will be out. When we see a bull standing in the grass, we stop… and then the second bull comes out of the woods and crosses the street… and we wait… and after a half-hour, we’re rewarded by a National Geographic special in front of our eyes! Russ snaps a few hundred photos, while I test out the video capabilities of my little point-and-shoot camera. After they’ve sparred for awhile and back off from each other, we get back on the saddles and roll down the road. In the little town of Orick, we stop at a small Mexican restaurant for coffee and an amazingly huge breakfast burrito (yum!). We’re also delighted to get cell phone service for the first time in days and thumb through all sorts of messages. We take an afternoon break at Patrick’s Point State Park, and I pull out my studio and work on some jewelry. Then we head down to Trinidad, where we meet our gracious host for the evening. We get a tour of the little town and enjoy an amazingly delicious dinner. Thanks Mary!

On Day 59, we get up early and devour some bacon and eggs for breakfast, before heading into town for groceries and photos. We take the scenic route out of Trinidad (literally called Scenic Road). We follow the ACA bike route, which routes us onto the Hammond Trail out of McKinleyville and into Arcata. If you’re going through here, check out the Hammond Trail! It’s a rail-to-trail conversion and you get to ride across an old rail bridge and through beautiful farmland. One stretch cuts through a cow pasture. Delightful.

In Arcata, we stop for coffee and contemplate where we’re going to stay for the night. Just as we’ve decided to make do with the KOA down the road, we meet Daruka, a reader of this site, who graciously offers up the futon in his place. We happily accept and spend a relaxing afternoon catching up with some details and washing some laundry. Thanks Daruka!

Day 60 (two months!!), we hop back on the 101 (now a two-lane, busy freeway), and book it down the road. Coffee in Eureka, lunch in Fortuna. And then we luck out and catch and strong tailwind out of Fortuna that pushes us up and over a few hills in the unseasonally high heat. We meet Turner, a cycle tourist making his way around the US, after starting in Florida many months ago. Russ helps re-true his front wheel and we all ride together for a stretch. We follow the Avenue of the Giants (through Humboldt Redwoods State Park), stop for sodas at a small grill in Redcrest, then push on to Burlington Campground, where we share a Hiker/Biker space with Jim & Jane of Bandon, OR (heading down to California wine country).

Day 61, we take our time getting up, make pancakes and try to figure out our plans for the next few days. We decide to leave Burlington (we had originally thought we’d stay two nights) and head down the road. We have mail waiting for us in Garberville and Russ is eager to pick it up and try it all out. In Garberville, we’re stunned by the number of hitch-hiking hippies (apparently in town for a festival over the weekend). One local tells Russ that we’re obviously not hippies, we’re on bikes, so we must be more motivated. Hmm… We load up the bikes with groceries (and begin to rethink our food packing system) and head down the road a few miles to Richardson Grove State Park. Over the course of the afternoon, we meet up with Jim & Jane, followed by Victor & Jane, then Tom & Chris. Another reunion! We stay up late laughing, since we know we probably won’t cross paths again.

Day 62 is a rest day for us. We hang out in Richardson Grove, listening to the new radio (that gets amazing reception!). I work on some jewelry, Russ works on the bikes, we hear about the tsunami in Samoa and wonder if we’re on high-enough ground and far-enough inland (even though the radio peoples tell us there’s no chance of it hitting the west coast). After feeling very out-of-touch with current events, it’s nice to hear the latest news as it breaks, while catching up with a lot of stuff that we’ve felt very behind with.

Day 63 is another rest day… and we take advantage of a gift certificate that was re-gifted to us for a night’s stay at The Benbow Inn. We check in early and realize how much we can appreciate being indoors now. I take a long bath and we sip some (complimentary) sherry… before picking up some Cup ‘O Noodle at the only market around (at the RV resort across the highway), because we’re feeling too lazy to ride up the very steep hill into Garberville and too cheap to splurge on dinner at the hotel restaurant. So we laugh at the irony and then check out the cable TV and sink into the very, very comfortable king bed.