Last night just before bed, Michal floated the idea of having an early pod, meaning a group of riders who would plan to be up significantly earlier than normal. This idea seemed to be popular though and only Danielle and Sarah opted out, as such the rest of us woke at 6am to hopefully hit the trails right around 7. We somehow managed to drag our feet though and didn’t get onto the road until about 7:30. Regardless, we were off.

 

We took a fairly casual pace as we still had about 15 miles on the Avenue of Giants to look forward to, and oddly enough there were a few small towns dotted along it between our camp site and the 101 that we were eventually connecting back up with.

 

We were off of the Avenue of Giants before 9am and hit the 101, or hit the hill back up to the 101. The Avenue of Giants parallels the 101 for the last 15 miles roughly albeit on the other side of Eel Creek(river), so when the Avenue of Giants ended we crossed under the 101 and then followed it for about 1000 feet before having to climb up to its level. Word on the street says that the Avenue of Giants is much more consistent, hill wise than the 101.

 

Anyways, we stopped for a short break to make sure all 5 of us were ready, and for a bit of a snack. We wouldn’t stop again  for about 15 miles at a gas station at the south end of Richardsons Grove which seemed to be quite a tourist hotspot. We stopped for “lunch” here at about 10:45 and this stop afforded us a few luxuries, in Michal’s case more beef jerky, in my case a few post cards and a pack of Mentos(mixed fruit – huzzah!). To this point we had gone about 30 Miles and we were given the impression that we were less than 20 to camp which thrilled us as that would mean at our current pace we were going to be there around noon.

 

On the road again, the windy and narrow sections of 101 were cool at times and completely sketchy at times thanks to the traffic. This section was interesting though because there are talks of expanding the highway to allow more truck traffic, and through this section the redwoods were bare in parts from trucks hitting and brushing up against them. From the few people I have spoken to, there seems to be an inherent opposition to them expanding the highway at the demise of the redwoods.

 

We pedalled on further to where we started to see signs of “Confusion Hill” which we’d heard of vaguely from Warren earlier in the trip. He did advise that GPS, phones and electronic devices go a bit haywire in this neck of the woods. And frankly, that is exactly what happened which I noticed while we were stopped, because Julie had a rear flat.  While she was trying to fix it, the rest of us snacked up, posed for photos and did various other things. Once Julie was all good we continued our trek, which came to a fairly quick end it feels like. We pretty much came down from Confusion Hill, and cycled maybe for 5 miles before we hit the entrance to Standish-Hickey State Park! It was 12:30 and we’d arrived after a gloriously short day of 45.28Miles/72.44Km – although it was a tough ride. Our pace for the trip – including stops – was down to 10Mph but we felt good, we were all hot thanks to the gorgeous weather, and to our delight our camp site backed onto Eel Creek which is the river a few of us lounged at yesterday in Humboldts!

 

I’m not quite sure if our up-hills were as steep as the down-hills that followed but if they were, than we did some awesome hill climbing because I reached a top speed of 40.5Mph/64.79KMh going down one of the 101 hills.

The odometer for all but about 6 days of riding is now at 724.1Miles/1158.55KM with signs estimating our trip to San Fran being about 170Miles away! Kiyo said that his odometer today hit 1000Miles/1600KM. Another 170 Miles would put this trip at no less than 1872Km!

 

I am still wondering about tomorrow though, as we’ve heard so much about the Mountain Climb in Leggett which in theory is tomorrow morning on our way back to the coast, but we’ve heard so many different things and it is becoming difficult to figure out what information is most/least valuable. I guess though at this point we will see in the morning.

 

Once we got to camp we immediately started to shed our sweaty gear from the day when Amelia pulled up. Perfect timing! We had the rest of our lunches, some snacks and then headed for the glorious sun and the river bank. The water was crisp but felt so good. We lay down by the water for about 2 hours before heading back up to camp to get some shade and relax further. Michal and I set up our “party tent” and then relaxing ensued.

 

The rest of the night consisted of some Perogies, vegetable soup, and spinach salad, all of which were delicious! We also played some “asshole” and crazy eights to round off the relaxation before an early bedtime.

 

Night folks! Tomorrow brings Leggett!