Eric's Bike Adventure 1995

Trip Log Part 7: Crescent City to Hidden Springs Campground

• Crescent City to Patrick's Point State Park Monday, July 24, 1995

  In the morning, Jonathan caught the bus to head back to Newport and head on home. I went with Wayne, who had to wait 'til the Escape Hatch Cyclery opened to ship Jonathan's bike back home. At Escape Hatch, I bought a bar-end mirror for my bike, one of the best purchases of the trip, especially with the road coming up ahead.

  

  The road south of Crescent City goes over a pair of hills, has little shoulder, and a lot of traffic. I was glad I got the mirror, since it made the road a little more bearable. At least I would know when somebody was going to run into me! I think these were the steepest hills of the entire trip.

  

  After the road flattens at the bottom of the first hill, we were taken past the Trees of Mystery, where you are greeted by Paul Bunyan (and Babe, his Blue Ox). I am convinced that the worst possible summer job has to be the person who plays the voice of Paul. The Paul Bunyan statue has a hand that waves, and a speaker where his voice comes from. Some poor sap is paid to encourage people to come inside, and presumably spend their money. Mostly, he has to talk to kids. There is a plaque at the feet of Paul that says all sorts of exciting trivia, like how tall he is, how big Babe is, that sort of thing. Kids go up, stare nervously up at the big statue, and ask things like "Paul... How big is your ax?" Paul then responds "My ax is 27 feet long!" in an appropriately bouncy voice. The "Trees of Mystery" are supposed to be a magical place in the forest where the "laws of nature" aren't obeyed. I suspect that the only laws that aren't obeyed are strict "truth in advertising" ones, but since I didn't go in, I guess I'll never know.

  

  We got back on the road, and due to some traffic construction going on, traffic was going only one direction at a time for several miles. This meant 5 or 6 miles with very little traffic, since all the cars in our direction would quickly blast past us, and then no cars until the next batch sent in our direction. Up over the next hill, and on the other side we arrived at the middle-of-nowhere town called Orick. I looked up, saw a tandem coming the other way, and started to wave. I looked again, and called out "BENNY! STOP!" All of us then turned around and crossed the road to back track to where the other was.

  

  The last time I had seen Benny and Amy was when I was skating on a trail near home, and they were out riding home on their tandem. They were the only people I really talked to before my trip who had ever done any bike touring before, and are really good people. I don't know them really well, but have had only good experiences with them. There was a grocery story nearby, and a gaggle of cyclists ended up gathering. Benny and Amy fed people Oreos and some really yummy bread. They heartily recommended stopping at a co-op in Arcata when we arrived there as a great place to get cheap healthy good food. Benny and Amy were amongst about 5 people I saw the entire coast heading north instead of south. Somebody asked how the going-north direction was, and Benny said he strongly recommended against it. (The wind goes predominantly north to south along the coast.)

  After the goings-on in Orick, it was smooth sailing to Patrick's Point State Park. We got to share the hiker biker site with a three guys from Canada, two together, and one on his own. All three were cycling from Vancouver to San Francisco.

  Day total: 56.7 miles, Trip total: 504.3

• Patrick's Point to Arcata, Tuesday, July 25, 1995

  The morning brought the first casualty of the trip. My food bag was raided, presumably by raccoons. One bag of munchies that was in a zipped pannier was gone, but the pannier was unzipped, not broken! Smart (or at least just wise) animals. I lost most of my "staples", but since I was eating out a lot, and replenishing on the way, it wasn't that traumatic. But I learned to remember to think about your food. I had gotten lax about worrying about critters, with the lack of problems thus far.

  

  Rather than head out early, Wayne and I wandered around the park, stared at some tidepools, got to see some crabs on the rocks, and just talked a lot.

  

  Further down the road, we could look back at the coast, and see how Patrick's Point really was quite distinct along the coastline. Continuing further, we wound up in Arcata. Following the route in the Adventure Cycling map, we got to go through some country back roads to get into town. It felt like riding through fields of cow pastures, all very green. On getting into the suburban part of town, we passed a house that literally looked like a castle, complete with turret. But no moat.

  After scoping out the rest of town, we ate some food. I had a most excellent tuna melt, yum! We tried to putter around the campus of Humboldt State University to find a computer to login, but to no avail. The only lab we found had a rather unfriendly person inform us that there was no way he could help us. We then found the hostel, and parked our stuff, and went down to do laundry in the local laundromat.

  

  The picture of the laundromat speaks for itself. It was a trip. All of the washers and dryers were painted in a fine variety of psychedelic colors and patterns. After we finished all our laundry, Miranda, a woman staying at the hostel wanted company to go back, since she was freaked out by the "tweakers" who were running the place. After that, more wandering around town, ate at the local microbrewery place (Wayne said he was testing them all the way down the coast) and then off to bed.

  Day total: 28.2 miles, Trip total: 532.5

• Arcata to Hidden Springs Campground, Wednesday, July 26, 1995

  On the road pretty early, to the first clear blue skies that I had seen since arriving on the coast of Oregon. Today would bring us through Eureka, and head inland some more, into more hot, grassy rolling hills. This was the only day of the entire trip were I noticed a particular tailwind. There were some hills where I was able to do over 18mph up one of the hills.

  

  It was cheezy, but I had to take a picture of the "Metropolitan Road" sign pointing to a field full of cows.

  Shortly after this was my first (and only!) flat tire of the trip. It turned out to be a "pinch flat" caused by my Mr. Tuffy's tire liners. I think that was due to either not paying attention to my tire pressure, or the warm temperatures changing the pressure for me. Considering I had only one flat in over 900 miles on this trip, I rate the Mr. Tuffy's quite highly.

  About 45 or so miles into the day, we left highway 101 to go on a side road, along the Avenue of the Giants. This stretch of road goes through old growth and second growth Coastal Redwood forest. My trip log described it best:

  Hilight of the day was going through the "Avenue of the Giants". It was simply awesome. We camped at the Hidden Springs Campground, the only cyclists there, 16 miles down the avenue. The road has really light traffic and is just majestic -- surrounded by giant coastal redwoods. Several times I just had to stop and just "absorb" the forest. Being in the forest, moving through it, with only the sound of the bike and the trees. A tremendous experience, not possible by car at all. Probably the hilight of the trip so far, possibly of the whole trip.

  I thought about taking pictures, but there is no way to capture the experience of the forest in a snapshot. 300 foot tall trees captured in a single frame just doesn't do it justice. I don't know how to convey the awesomeness that the forest provides. Compared to the forest, I felt small and insignificant. I was glad for it sharing its power.

  After getting to the campsite, we went down to the river and swam, then cooked quesadillas, and took a nice hot shower.

  Day total: 63.5 miles, Trip total: 596.0