Day 30 - And I would walk (Ride) 1000 miles!

Leggett, CA to Willits, CA - 49 Miles

For the last 2 nights we camped with 4 other cyclists touring various sections of the Pacific Coast. We have met wonderful people on this trip from many different places around the globe. Raj is from Singapore and generously gave up 30 minutes of his evening to teach us about the island of Singapore. He was even kind enough to ignore Tan's repeated question, "Are people from Singapore poor singers?"

We bid farewell to our fellow cyclists this morning and steared away from the coast. The more popular route from Leggett to San Francisco is along Hwy 1. We decided it would be safer for us and the boys if we avoided the coastal cliffs in favor of a more inland route. We climbed most of the day, but we're excited because it's setting us up for a mostly downhill ride into San Francisco.

Half way through our ride today, Stephen called a stop to direct our attention to his odometer. We have officially traveled 1000 miles! Now may be a good time to talk about other statistics and projections. On our 27th day of riding, we calculated that if we maintain our current pace of averaging 34 miles per day, we could finish the ride in 26 more days. That would put us at the border on October 26th. There are obviously a lot of factors to consider and things that could come up. We could possibly finish sooner, but I think I'm safe saying that we will definitely touch the Mexican border before Halloween.

Day 29 - Mendocino County Line

Meyers Flatt, CA to Leggett, CA - 44 Miles

There are a few difficulties with camping in the middle of the redwood forest.  The scenery is beautiful, but being surrounded by 300 foot tall trees means it gets darker earlier in the evening  and gets light later in the morning.  The other problem is the temperature.  This was our coldest morning of the trip.  It just takes the sun and heat longer to filter down that far.  Ironically, our coldest morning turned into our hottest day.

Today we made it to the "Drive Thru Tree."  Apparently there are at least 3 in the redwood forest, and we passed one today.  It's just off the Avenue of the Giants in a park.  The park also has tree houses, hollowed out stumps with roofs made into play houses.  The boys loved them!

I left camp this morning humming the song "Mendocino County Line."  It must have been intuition because I'm not up to snuff enough on my California geography to know that Mendocino county is south of Humboldt county.  Sure enough, this afternoon we passed the Mendocino county line.  The reason this is significant is because it reminds me of a family vacation when I was in High School.  

Right about the time we crossed the Mendocino county line (and commented on the song) my Mom and I had a memorable conversation.  I was telling her how one day I wanted to design and build my own home, but not just the house itself.  I wanted to build/make everything in the house (the furniture, the cabinets, the bedding).  Her response was, "You know, you're going to get married one day.  What if your husband doesn't like your crazy ideas?"  All I said was, "Oh, don't worry.  My husband will LOVE my crazy ideas."  I feel like the conversation came full circle today being here at the Mendocino county line with Stephen, doing something that some have called crazy.  Funny though, it doesn't seem crazy to us.  It seems perfectly normal.  We were meant for each other.

"I keep these pictures and I keep these photographs to remind me of a ti-i-ime.  These pictures and these photographs help me know I-I-I'm doing fine."

Day 28 - Gems and Redwoods (Half Way!)

Eureka, CA to Meyers Flatt, CA - 54 miles

Getting out of the tent early was easy this morning because the hot tub was calling my name again. It was covered up, but there were no posted hours, so I helped myself.

We went grocery shopping in Eureka before heading out for the day, but it was a little different than typical shopping on this trip. Eureka has a Costco. We obviously didn't buy much, but we stocked up on the items we use most - peanut butter, honey, nuts, soap. Another rider at camp this evening couldn't believe that we did Costco shopping on a bike tour! We are discovering that there is a whole different dynamic when touring as a family. When we meet a group traveling together, they typically each still have their own gear. 3 cyclists travel with 3 tents, 3 stoves, etc. Traveling as a family, we share a lot of those things.

Last fall in Houston, a friend invited us to the Rock and Gem Show. We saw geode splitting demonstrations, participated in the archeological dig and saw more rocks and gems than we could name. This year, of course, we're not in Houston to attend, but we stopped by a Gem and Mineral shop on our route today. We didn't see any demonstrations, but we did peruse the shop and museum and saw more gems and minerals than we could name. We aren't just homeschooling now, we're travel schooling.

The most exciting part of the day was Avenue of the Giants. We broke away from 101 to travel through the Redwoods. I finally learned the difference between a redwood and a Sequoia. If you're interested, keep reading. There are 3 types of redwood trees. The Dawn Redwoods grow only in Asia and are the smallest of the redwood varieties. The Coast Redwoods grow in Northern California and are the tallest variety, while the Sequoia Redwoods grow in Central California and are the largest in diameter. There's your botany lesson for the day.

At some point today we passed the half way mark! Yay!

Day 27 - Eureka!

Orick, CA to Eureka, CA - 45 miles

I'm an early riser.  At home I get up to read in the kitchen or write on the computer.  It's a bit more complicated while camping.  The boys each need 9 - 10 hours of sleep, while my body is satisfied with 7.  On this trip, we all go to bed at the same time around 9pm.  Even if I sleep an extra hour, I'm up at 5am when it's still dark outside.  If I sit in the tent to write (wireless keyboard connected to my phone), then I get a back ache in the sitting position and I wake up the men folk úwith my click clacking.  I could sit outside in the dark, but the fact that the campsites have bear lockers for our food is slightly disconcerting.  Usually I end up staying in the tent reading until my arms get tired of holding the phone over my head.

This morning I woke up to a screaming neck and back.  For 3 1/2 weeks in a tent, I've been fine, but my body did not appreciate last night.  At 4:45 am I was done sleeping and had to do something.  Solution: the shower stalls have benches.  This morning, I'm sitting in a locked shower stall click clacking away with no one to bother and no bears to bother me.  I hope the rest of the California campground showers are as accommodating as this one.

Last night we are stayed at a campground called Elk Prairie State Park.  We didn't see any elk last night, but they were out this morning.  There were 4 grazing in the prairie as we rode out of camp and plenty more down the road.

When we broke camp this morning, I knew we would be staying at a KOA, so I prayed there would be a hot tub.  My simple prayer was answered and my neck and back thanked me for the jet massage.  The weather today was beautiful.  We had a north wind that blew hard all day and helped us complete our 45 miles by 3:30pm.

Day 26 - Big Trees

Crescent City, CA to Orick, CA - 37 miles

We have been anticipating the Crescent City hill for about a week.  We knew it would be one of the longest and tallest of the trip.  We knew that it would be about 10 miles start to finish, so I pictured 5 miles up and 5 miles back down.  We were pleasantly surprised when it was only about 3 miles to the top.  After that, there was a bit of up and down before the final descent.  The descent wasn't as steep and straight as Bins had hoped, so taking his cue from Tan's comment on Saturday, he said, "That was so not worth it."  These boys LOVE speed!

We made it to the Redwoods today.  We still have 2 days until Avenue of the Giants, but we have already seen some pretty big trees.  Our last 5 miles into camp, we were in dense forest with hiking trails branching off.  Many of the groves were named and even some specific trees were named.  At one point, I saw a sign that said simply, "Big Tree" with an arrow pointing to the left.  I began scanning the left side of the road expecting to see the largest tree of the day, but instead I saw a day use park named "Big Tree."  It seemed deceptive until I found out there really is a tree named "Big Tree," you just can't see it from the road.

Day 25 - California!

Brookings, OR to Crescent City, CA - 30 miles

On Sunday morning, if the chapel is within a few miles of camp, we don't bother changing into riding clothes just to change into church clothes when we arrive at the chapel.  Today we rode to church in our pajamas.  Pajamas consist of comfortable street clothes on this trip, but it still feels funny walking into the church building like that.  We get some quizzical looks, but thankfully everyone is happy to have us there as guests.

We had our second flat tire today at 760 miles.  This time it was my turn.  What is the purpose of slime?  The bike shop where we bought my bike put it in my tubes, but I'm beginning to doubt the logic.  It couldn't patch 2 tiny holes left by a staple.  Besides that, I couldn't deflate the tire all the way to store it rolled-up in the trailer until we could patch it with a kit.  Storage effeciency may seem like an unimportant ding against it's logic, but it's a major concern on this trip.  Maybe we did it wrong and maybe we weren't patient enough, so I guess I'm open to having my mind changed about that.

The big news for today is...WE MADE IT TO CALIFORNIA!!!  We have now biked the length of 2 states and are  starting on the third (and final).

Day 24 - "That was so worth it!"

Port Orford, OR to Brookings, OR - 51 miles

We got out early this morning because we knew it was going to be a long day.  We had some up-hill at the beginning of our ride, followed by a long, gradual down hill.  Nice!  We made great time and had already covered 20ish miles before lunch.  During lunch, we had to break out the  first aid kit for the second time on this trip.  Nothing major, just me a knife and an avocado. 

We let the boys listen to audio books while they ride.  They get to put in the right ear bud only so they can still hear us and the traffic.  It helps break up the monotony of pedaling for them and gives them something to focus on other than how many miles we've gone and how many we have left.  It's also one way we squeeze in school even though we're riding most of the day.  They learn new vocabulary and give us book reports periodically.  Once we get to camp, they have to turn off the books so we have family time and the boys' undivided attention.

After lunch, Tan was riding around the park and choosing to listen to his book rather than to instructions from us.  Consequently, he lost the mp3 player for the next 5 miles.  Shortly after resuming our ride, he started riding wild on purpose and nearly collided with Stephen.  The bark that followed, plus the blow of loosing the book privilege plus the hill we were climbing all dampened his spirits significantly.

Right at that moment, a car drove past, and a woman said, "Annette," out the window.  It took me  just a minute to recognize Henry and Kathy, our sister-in-law's parents.  They knew that we were somewhere in Oregon, but had no idea where or even our route.  They were driving up the coast and turned around when they recognized us.  We stopped and visited with them for a bit, took a few pictures (notice that Tan wouldn't even look at the camera) and they graciously offered to treat us to dinner that evening.  It was so fun to see a little piece of home on this trip, even if it wasn't exactly our home.

In case you're wondering, the Tan story has a happy ending.  As it always does, the uphill turned into a downhill and soon we were all sailing down the other side.  When Tan intentionally skidded to an impressive stop at the bottom, he shouted (completely unprompted), "That was so worth it!"  I wish I could had gotten his reaction on video so that I can show it to him the next time he complains about a hill.