getting there is more than half the fun (83.6% in fact!)
40 miles, 5 bridges, and 0 cars! That’s what the 5 Boro Bike Ride, held on Glen’s 50th birthday, promised. Since we’d spent the past couple of months riding in the rain, we figured we knew the drill and set out in the drizzle, along with 20,000+ other cyclists.
Alissa: What’s the next entry in this sequence?
306, Hideaway Suite, 2, 222, 230, Fishman’s Cabin, 6, 17, D33, 50, 2, 2, 306, 540, 512, 7, 688, 23, 53, 1, 12, 303, 107, 349, 18102, 4207, 513, 6331E, 316, 4046,…
Oh you thought this post was going to be about our next adventure? 😉
These are our room designations from the trip.
In order that I may submit this blog as my sabbatical report, I’ll devote the remaining time of my sabbatical to determining the next entry in the sequence. With luck, I’ll even figure out the closed form formula, after which I will add it to the “Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences” (after making the obvious integer substitutions for some of the sequence members).
Alissa: After 1,000 miles, 14 counties, roughly 45,000 feet of elevation gained and lost, a min elevation of -7 feet, max elevation of 1930 feet, and one flat tire, we MADE IT! =) =)
[Note: these numbers include our extra help from Day #5.]
Our final day began with a giant wide road just for us!
Shortly after starting out, we came across a sea cave from the early 1900s
that we naturally had to check out.
To add to our fun, we rode the ferry across to Coronado “Island”
during which we saw a complete circle rainbow!
We wanted to visit “Friendship Park” right along the border, but it was closed due to flooding. So, we didn’t make it far into this park.
We headed east to the actual border crossing, and were pleased to see McDonalds in its appropriate role, greeting visitors at the “gateway to the Americas.”
We’re so close to Mexico, you can even walk there!
We took the electric trolley back up to downtown
where we loaded up a minivan with all our stuff
and went out to celebrate with Mexican food!
I’m wishing that I had taken pictures of all the lifeguard stations from Santa Barbara onward. There was so much variation, which I wouldn’t have expected!
Alissa: Our day began with delightful signage in the breakfast room!
Hmph. We were NOT planning to ride 57 miles today. But thanks to the few, the proud at Camp Pendleton who decided to close the bike path for their training exercises, we got to ride on “the 5” for thirteen miles instead of six plus ride an additional ten miles. Ooh Rah.
We knew we were going to have to ride on the shoulder of “the 5” for a little bit because the Camp changed its policy regarding bicyclists. It used to be the case that you’d show up, flash your ID, and be merrily on your way through. But a few months ago they started making everyone stop at their main gate (on the SOUTHERN end of the Camp) to obtain a pass. So, “the 5” it was.
As you might imagine, we weren’t exactly thinking about taking pictures as we rode like the wind (seriously, Glen rode faster than a bat out of hell) to get off the freeway as quickly as possible. Then we were just so mentally drained from being hyper alert that we weren’t inspired to document much else. However, the Pacific Surfliner sped right by us, and we did manage to capture that.
Alissa: It was a strange feeling yesterday being in civilization the entire day and knowing that this would be the case for the remainder of the trip. Even the ride along PCH in Malibu had unpopulated spots, so yesterday was really the first time the whole trip.
Our ride today took us through all the uber posh beach communities of the OC: Corona del Mar, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, etc.
I found the riding conditions to be perhaps the least pleasant of our trip! I would have rather been on the side of PCH. No bike lane, no shoulder, and lots of people in expensive cars in a hurry who did NOT want cyclists sharing *their* road. None of these drivers were giving us friendly honks accompanied by big grins and a thumbs up! (And yes, we got quite a few of these along the way, though mostly when we were north of San Francisco and mostly from hippies in their Volkswagen mini buses.)
We stopped for lunch in Laguna at the Orange Inn, which has been there since 1931!
We didn’t notice until we went inside that they claim to be the “home of the original smoothie”! (Which would have been clear had we read their awning.) Of course Glen tried it, and of course we asked why they think they’re the creators of smoothies. I don’t remember the story (Glen probably does) but it was something about blenders being invented in 1931… Anyway. It was a tasty stop that we’re glad we randomly chose.
Alissa: And we’re back! I finished up my civic service for the good folk of Los Angeles County at the Pomona Superior Courthouse, so we loaded up our packs and set off for the border.
The day started like many bike rides Glen and I have taken: southbound along the beach path going through Marina del Rey, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and ending at the Redondo Beach pier. We’ve done this ride so many times that nothing was worthy of photographing since it was all just “normal” to us.
Our route then took us inland through Torrance and Carson, where we passed what at first looked like the Haribo bear.
We also rode through some lovely residential areas with great trees!
After crossing the 110 and 710, we rode along the LA River on the river bike path.
This took us into Long Beach, where the Queen Mary was off in the distance.
Finally we joined the beach path that took us along Bolsa Chica, Huntington Beach, and finally Newport Beach. Since I’ve spent loads of time on this path (as Newport holds a special place in the hearts of all Crans family members), I wasn’t inspired to take pictures as everything was just so familiar. The day ended by having dinner with my parents!
Alissa: My good friend Robert texted me a couple of days ago about the “millions” of butterflies in Los Angeles.
Today we woke up to be greeted by all of them! It really was delightful to see so many of them at once, and fairly consistently down to Malibu.
I’ve ridden this exact route a few times now, and it’s still beautiful. (Though, I must say, I used to think of Malibu as incredibly gorgeous and today I did have the reaction, “meh,” to the view in comparison to what we saw up in Big Sur.)
There were tons of bright wildflowers everywhere because of the rain
even in places destroyed by the recent fires.
For a brief portion of the ride near Zuma Beach, we had our own protected corridor!
After a long day of riding, we arrived at the Santa Monica Pier, where we’ve spent lots of time enjoying the Fosselman’s ice cream.
We’re staying put for a few days because I’m on call to do my civic duty this week, and then we’ll finish up the ride by heading to the border!
Alissa: It was only a matter of time…
We’ve been lucky and this is our first flat. (And in a super convenient place–the hotel!) I have absolutely no clue how Glen’s tire and tube came to be in the state shown above, so perhaps he can explain what happened. Fortunately, he’s very good at fixing all sorts of things,
so we were quickly on our way. We made a brief stop to check out one of the oldest bike shops in the country
then stopped for lunch at a (super tasty) bakery with an attached wine tasting room!
We were on the highway for only a brief period
because most of today was spent on incredibly nice, protected bike paths!
As an analog to the Glen-riding photo from a few days ago…
After dinner, we channeled our inner Daniel-san and went out for a night on the town!
We experienced Autopia as it was initially conceived
and illustrated the Mean Value Theorem after I started first and we both kept the pedal floored our entire time. Then we played some arcade games and some mini-golf.
Alissa: Leaving Lompoc was awesome for a few reasons: it was a gorgeous day, we were heading back toward the coast, we left behind an incredible windy city, we rode through lush green hills, we had an enormous shoulder (basically as wide as an entire lane), and perhaps the awesome-est reason was the gleaming, shiny, brand-new repaved road.
During a long, flat carless section, I snapped a closeup of Glen enjoying the ride.
At the top of the road, we took a break for lunch and a quick computation.
After descending, we reunited with the first road we took when leaving Arcata
because in this part of the state, “the 101” is along the coast (as you can see in the picture) while “the 1” is…well, I don’t know where it is, actually. Perhaps they’re even the same road! Here “the 101” is the
Before we got to the coast, we rode through a gap in the cliffs, which wasn’t big enough for travel in both directions (there is a tunnel on the northbound side).
And look how close we are to home now!
The winner of the “best traffic sign” of the trip goes to the one prior to a bridge just north of Refugio State Beach.
Tonight’s dinner thankfully didn’t involve any flags.
Alissa: Getting to Goleta (the home of UCSB) from Santa Maria involves gaining well over 3,000 feet in elevation. So, we decided to polish off a third of that and stop in the city of art and flowers, Lompoc, CA. Our day started and ended with a long, continuous series of strip malls. CVS, Walgreens, Albertsons, Burger King, Jack in the Box, Auto Zone, and so on. In between, we passed many more strawberry fields (during which I told Glen that I might have to pick one at some point for, you know, quality control).
We arrived in Lompoc in time for lunch then a wine tasting at Longoria for Glen, which he declared his favorite wines of the trip thus far.
Alissa: We woke up to a great view of the Morro rock.
We stopped in SLO for lunch and a quick visit to the local bike shop.
It was a great day for a ride!
We had to say goodbye to the coast today for a couple of days as Hwy 1 (now called Pacific Coast Highway!) turns inland. We spent another afternoon passing by numerous farms. We saw cows, horses, goats, sheep, chickens,
citrus trees, cilantro crops (so fragrant!), and many, many more strawberries.
Alissa: Very quickly into our ride we turned inland away from the coast for a bit.
After a few miles we stopped to see the elephant seals
then made an early pit stop for lunch of burgers made from Hearst cattle and some wine tasting for Glen.
Then we went on a tour of the Hearst Castle
and saw a bunch of bedrooms, Hearst’s office
the indoor pool,
and the looooooong driveway up from Hwy 1.
We passed through Cambria and Cayucos which I think were our final cute little towns consisting of a single Main St “downtown” area. Glen kindly took a picture of me when we passed Harmony. The last time I was in a picture with this sign, my brother and grandma were also in the photo and Harmony had 4 fewer citizens.
We rode until 7 pm because of the time change and our long mid-day break at the Castle, so were starving when we arrived in Morro Bay (which also had a super cute single-street downtown). In the words of my nephew, “What the?”
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the ATM and I saw this:
Why doesn’t anyone (er, the Easter Bunny?) ever leave a Reese’s bar and clasp envelopes at my place of work?
Alissa: Glen surprised me with a fun gift:
which I gleefully started unwinding
wondering what on Earth could be wrapped up inside. I didn’t have to wait long until I found a plastic frog,
a glamorous new ring,
and a roll of Smarties.
Fun times!
Alissa: Today we rode through both of the road closure areas, which, thankfully, had opened!
We had more lovely views along the coast,
and the views to our left looked mostly like this:
During our lunch stop at the Whale Watchers Cafe, I, suitably, saw the spout of a whale! And, we encountered fellow cyclists also riding down the coast!
Post lunch, Glen and I made unexpected discoveries. First, I found Freddy! I didn’t even know I had been looking for him.
Then Glen found that elusive California reflector rock!
Alissa: Hooray!
Not only did Caltrans open the second mudslide area, but we had a glorious, gorgeous, spectacular sunny day to experience the Big Sur that Google had teased me with.
The water was a brilliant turquoise that I’ve only seen in, like, Hawaii .
Due to all the recent rain, we passed many waterfalls.
I will bore you with a few more pictures of paradise.
And, look! We’re getting closer to home!
Alissa: Good news! Caltrans opened one of the two road closures and anticipates opening the other one tomorrow!
The road looks like it took a beating.
I’m going to have to ask my brother, who knows everything there is to know about concrete and asphalt, how this could happen.
(Funny story, which I bet he doesn’t remember: When we were both home from college one year for Thanksgiving and we were both doing homework, he looked at me and asked, “Wanna guess how much rebar you need in your driveway so an elephant could walk on it?” I remember snickering to myself about the course titles on his spiral bound notebooks: Dirt I, Soils I, … and remember asking him, “Does one take Dirt and Soils II?” The answer, my friends, is yes. Yes one does.)
For our (hopefully!) final evening here, Glen enjoyed his final Sonoma County themed wine and cheese hour,
we went back to the local pub (which had the best food of our four possible restaurant options),
and we devoted time to our Jedi training.
We’re going to wait for the Caltrans announcement tomorrow about the second road closure, then head out on our way. So that you can have a sense of what we’re dealing with regarding our knowledge about the weather, here’s the forecast from the two sites I’ve been using:
If we’ve learned anything from this interlude here in Big Sur, it’s embodied in the sage words of Dr. Glen Whitney, PhD: “Weather prediction is hard.”
Alissa: It POURED today. During the downpour, I decided to check out what my weather sites had to say about the situation.
We both were fairly productive work-wise and Glen enjoyed the Medocino County themed wine and cheese hour.
Alissa: I joined the daily yoga class, which I described to Glen as a “guided nap,” and after which we learned the following:
Caltrans *did* wind up closing the highway in two locations, which would have stranded us at the place with no availability for Wed and Thurs. So, score one for us for making the right decision!
The rest of the day was spent attending fairly low-key seminars: the Napa County themed wine and cheese hour,
hanging out in the “Social House,”
and celebrating Mardi Gras at the local pub.
Of course it didn’t actually rain all day as the forecast had implied it would. (Deep thoughts by Glen Whitney: “Weather prediction is hard.”)
Alissa: The next few legs of our journey present a logistic challenge in that the options for lodging along this section of the coast are extremely limited.
Consider the following scenario: It is Monday and the weather is perfect for cycling! You can get to your desired location, but
(1) The weather forecast says 100% chance of rain for Tuesday and Wednesday.
(2) You’re hearing rumors Caltrans might close sections of Hwy 1 preemptively, in case of mudslides.
(3) Your ONLY accessible lodging option if the highway is indeed closed has availability for Monday and Tuesday, but is completely sold out for Wednesday and Thursday.
WWY(ou)D?
We decided, based on this information, to stay put in our tiny corner of Big Sur and wait out the storm and possible road closure.
We’re trying to make the best of it…
Glen suffered through a massage then enjoyed the San Joaquin County themed wine and cheese hour.
Alissa: Sigh…
Mother Nature: 2; Glen and Alissa: 0
I really need to (1) find another weather website and/or (2) let Glen make the decision about whether we should cycle given the forecast. Weather.gov said that there was a “30% chance of rain prior to 10 am” and “new precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.” Instead, post-lunch it lightly rained continuously for the remaining three hours of our ride. Thankfully it wasn’t cold. The real concern, though, wasn’t the rain, but, as you will see, the fog.
Glen’s ride was brought to you/us by the letters T and C (for Tablas Creek). No, this didn’t fuel his journey! But it provided the necessary motivation to get through the conditions.
About 30 seconds after leaving the front door of our hotel we passed California’s first state historic landmark!
I regret not stopping to peek in but we wanted to get on our way.
Our route took us along the scenic 17-mile drive, which costs cars over $10 to travel along but we were free!
Within the first few miles we passed the picturesque “lone cypress”
which, in fact, is not so lonely!
Perhaps you recognize the tree from television when the US Open is held in Pebble Beach. We made a brief stop at the Visitor Center and learned that Pebble Beach will host *this* year’s Open!
We rode by the beautiful mission in Carmel, which is the state’s second oldest. Post lunch the relentless drizzling began about the time we encountered this sign.
When have you ever been given information about the next SEVENTY-FOUR miles?!?!?
Our views started out great
but then the fog started rolling in. Despite the gloomy day the water was still a clear, bright aquamarine.
We rode across numerous historic bridges, including two from the 1930s, and eventually across the iconic Bixby Creek Bridge! (I hesitate to post this photo because of how terrifying the conditions look and I don’t want my parents to freak out, but…)
According to Google, this bridge is incredibly well photographed and on occasion looks amazing.
A few miles down the road our westward view was nonexistent.
But, again, Google suggests that it can be incredibly gorgeous along this stretch of highway.
Alissa: Neither of us had been to this park before, so we rented a car and drove about an hour east. We stopped at Flapjack’s Breakfast for brunch, which had the best gender neutral restroom sign I’ve ever seen!
We kicked off our visit with spelunking in Bear Gulch Cave!
It was incredible that this cave was open to visitors as it got kinda hairy in places.
We made it out and were immediately rewarded with amazing views.
The “pinnacles” were certainly impressive!
After dinner we channeled the DeLong family and went to Revival Ice Cream where we devoured a “flight” of ice cream (6 mini scoops) and waffle cone. (I regret that we didn’t take a picture of *our* flight, but thanks to the interwebs I was able to find someone else’s!)
Alissa: Today was spent mostly off of “the one” since it was highway (hence, no bicycles) and not a state road. We saw very little of the coast, but instead passed miles and miles of crops, mainly strawberries
and artichokes!
And we saw the first sign indicating our distance from home!
Toward the end of our ride we passed a state park with lovely dunes.
We’re heading to Pinnacles National Park tomorrow!
Alissa: All the wind and rain yesterday was so totally worth it to have the gorgeous perfect day today. It was my favorite leg of our ride thus far, possibly because the entire distance was protected land. Long, flat stretches along the coast in warm sunshine, dotted with state parks and beaches (each with public restrooms, yay!). I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
Alissa: Our weekend break in Berkeley turned into four days as we found the forecast for very high winds (40+ mph!) and downpour from another atmospheric river slightly terrifying. We had a great time visiting with Glen’s brother and sister-in-law, having lots of tasty food, visiting some sort of Earth tuning fork
and meeting our new food-delivery overlords.
So, on Wednesday we restarted our journey along state route 1, now with a new name
when the forecast was for winds with speeds in the teens and a 60% chance of rain.
Mother Nature: 1; Glen and Alissa: 0
First came the wind. A super strong headwind that was NOT in the teen-mph zone. Biking uphill sucked. Biking downhill was NOT. EASY. Then came the torrential downpour. If you told me I was 60% likely to win a car, I wouldn’t have expected that I’d win three Porsches. And yet, we were DRENCHED. (I’m just telling myself the day served to increase my grit.) Then Sam’s Chowder House appeared like a sno-cone machine in the desert. (At least it was warm, though. In the 60’s.)
Post lunch we arrived in historic Half Moon Bay where we made a brief stop at the local bike shop
and for lunch dessert
during which the conversation went something like this:
AC: “Oooh look! Moon cookies!”
GW: “We’re not in Crescent Bay.”
AC:
Finally, we stopped by Cunha’s County General Store & Second Floor Emporium (!!!) where they were selling last year’s PumpkinFest t-shirts, prompting me to tell Glen he now knows where he’ll be at some point this October. Pumpkinfest!
Glen: This is the awesomest description of a day of our ride. 🙂 The only very critical detail I have to add is that Cunha’s second floor was blocked off, so no Emporium for us, just general store. 🙁
Alissa: It was a bit crazy to go from the middle of nowhere to being across the Golden Gate Bridge in about 20 miles! All the small towns in Marin County between Fairfax and Sausalito were super cute and reminded me of the Village area in Claremont. Since we had plans to meet our friend Matt Parker for delicious pizza, we didn’t stop in any of them, but it was fun to see them.
We really lucked out and had a gorgeous sunny (and non-windy!) day to cross the bridge.
And now we’re spending the weekend in Berkeley to spend some time off the bikes and see Glen’s brother and other friends.
Glen: I had heard that the Golden Gate Bridge is always being painted: as soon as they finish one coat, it’s time to start the next from the other end. But I didn’t see a single painter. What did happen, though, is that there was an emergency closing of the pedestrian exit from the bridge, so that dozens and dozens of people had to wait on the bridge (the cars could whiz by, no problem), making us even later for our lunch meetup.
Shoreline Hwy turned inland, so today’s ride was mostly through farmland. In contrast to the giant trees from a week ago and the gorgeous coastline from the past few days, we rode through lots of green pastures.
We saw many cows, horses, sheep, goats, chickens and geese. Then we rode along an ENORMOUS bay for many miles.
We stopped in Point Reyes Station to check out the original Cowgirl Creamery shop, Bovine Bakery, and a bike shop. But the guy there was super icy and rude, totally unlike any other bike shop employee I’ve ever met. So, we continued on our way including along a dedicated bike path for awhile until we encountered:
Fortunately Glen has super strength as one of his hidden talents so he pushed the fallen tree out of our way and we rode to our home for the night.
Glen: The guy at the bike shop did at least hook me up with exactly the right bolt to hold my rack on correctly, so that’s good. We tried to play bike Samaritans and help someone install a new tube in her tire, but somehow managed to pinch or rip the tube in installing it. Hope we have better luck when we get a flat. Also, we stopped at a super sandwich shop in Tomales, CA, and picked up two tasty sandwiches we ate for lunch in Point Reyes Station.
Alissa: Glen is too nice and doesn’t like to say anything mean or bad about anyone. The bike shop guy was a TOTAL. JERK. He was rolling his eyes and completely dismissing us when Glen was talking to him. He told us to take our bikes out of his shop and when I asked him to take a quick check of my brakes he, well, didn’t. Yes, he had the right piece of hardware for Glen but THAT WAS IT. If I could, I’d tell people never to go there.
Alissa: Today was a day of firsts–the first time we saw other cyclists (one of whom was in a recumbent with a sign proclaiming “New York to Seattle!”) and the first time we each got hit by ocean spray.
While waiting around for the light mist to stop this morning before starting our journey, Glen captured another rainbow:
Today was also the scariest day of riding for me as the winds were at least 25 mph when we were riding on a very exposed edge of the road. (Not true during the taking of the following two pictures!) There were many times I chose to just walk my bike until the route turned inland.
Today we also passed the first winery along our route (since we decided an additional 1800 feet of elevation wasn’t worth it to trek into the Sonoma Valley for the bazillions of wineries there).
The ride today ended with a brief detour in Bodega to photograph this church (mostly for our friend Scott). Another thousand Alissa-bucks are yours if you recognize it.
Glen: This was the most dramatic coastline ride so far, ranging from almost 400 feet above the sea on sheer cliffs with views for miles down to right beside the beach and the waves. As Alissa mentioned, some of the plunges downhill veered into scary, while others were just exhilarating. Also a good day for birds: numerous types of raptors, lots of vultures flying low enough over the road that you could see their blood-red heads, and also crows doing weird aerial somersaults in the strong winds on one promontory.
Alissa: An intentionally nice, easy very-little-elevation-gain ride so we could hang out and do some work in the afternoon. Remember that ad that told us that “great cheese comes from happy cows”? and that “happy cows come from California”? Well, I think these were the ones they were talking about. I mean, look at their view!
Glen: Timber Cove is a really gorgeous spot. The views were even better than the night before. A lovely, sunny place to catch our breath.
Alissa: Today was perfect! Not a cloud in the sky and long stretches along the coast. It was glorious! I kept hoping to see whales migrating south, but no luck (yet!). Today there were only two towns with any services: Elk and Point Arena. The highlight of today’s ride was the amazing hardware store where we got Glen a new screw for his rack.
Ugh–the pavement for our last 15 miles from Point Arena to Gualala was AWFUL, but at least we had this view upon arriving:
Glen: Gualala had a bit more to offer than some of the spots we’d been through, so for example we could have Mexican food for dinner. But to some extent, our options were limited by the fact that as far as we could tell, every store and eating establishment (maybe not some bars) closed at exactly 8PM.
Alissa: Today was glorious! No rain and a ride along the coast.
We passed through the lovely little towns of Fort Bragg, including a stop at Glass Beach
and Medocino, among many others. My favorite parts of these towns are their general stores and post offices, which have so much more character than the ones we normally see! They all have different colored and shaped buildings. Our view for the evening:
Glen: Yes, and in fact, this view is from the giant, jetted soaking tub in the lovely cabin we had in Albion. A great way to relax after the day’s ride.
Alissa: After waiting an hour in the morning for the rain to stop, we headed out to tackle the longest climb of the trip. It rained off and on during the climb, but we made it to the top, passing lots of snow on the sides of the road and slush on the ground.
It was a similar route to the one I rode up to MSRI when I was there. During the miles of descending in rain and sub-40 degree temps, my hands and feet were becoming too cold. So, I started walking with my bike. At some point, a retired firefighter took pity on us and pulled over to see if we needed help. He offered us a ride down the rest of the way, which I happily agreed to.
I’m sure we’ll be reading the newspaper and learn that his story is analogous to that of Large Marge’s (One thousand Alissa-bucks for you if you know the reference).
The worst part of accepting the ride was that our first view of the Pacific Ocean was from a truck.
With our quicker-than-expected ride, we had plenty of time to play in Westport:
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a beach with black sand!
Glen: Note that the above is the non-cheating graph, covering about 15 miles. I was still chilly by the time we pulled into Westport, but fortunately among the charms of the Westport hotel were a blazing-hot dry sauna and a a very powerful gas fireplace in the lobby which soon took care of that issue.
Alissa: Another day of riding in off and on rain to get to our cabin in Leggett, which had a wood-burning stove! (Glen: And a good thing, too, since we were the wettest/freeziest here of any place except for Redcrest.)
On the way we passed many oddities, the first being this giant guy:
Then we stopped to grab a snack here:
And with our short ride, we had plenty of time to play at Confusion Hill:
Glen: It was kind of amazing to find such a cheesy tourist trap in a place that seemed as much in the middle of nowhere as any place I’ve been. In fact, it’s considered a historic site because it is a rare holdout among many such cheesy tourist traps that developed in the 30s and 40s along with car culture. This spot was so deserted that the only place to eat was a pub open only Thurs, Fri, Sat — luckily for us we were there on a Friday.
Alissa: We headed down to the Historic Benbow Inn, when Glen caught a photo of a rainbow during a brief period we weren’t getting dumped on with rain.
We arrived just in time for delicious orange scones during afternoon tea time.
Glen: Kudos also to the Benbow Inn for being the only hotel (at least in the first two weeks of the trip) that gave our bicycles their own room (well, a storage room by the lobby, but it was a lot easier than dragging our bikes up to our rooms).
Alissa: I rode the remaining distance along Avenue of the Giants
while Glen took the Humboldt InnerCity Transit Bus to the Garberville Community Hospital, where he was told he would live to die another day. The Best Western was our home for two nights while Glen recovered from his adventure (and supported the Garberville economy by playing Cupid):
We had the best snickerdoodle cookie we’ve ever had (not made by us) and attempted to visit the Rockefeller Grove in Humboldt State Park, but were thwarted by a fallen redwood.
Glen: Boy, was I glad the voters of Garberville had just approved a bond measure last November to keep their hospital open. The folks on the bus were super nice about directing me there, and then I went through the roller coaster of suspected conditions: pneumonia, cracked rib, a “heart event,” tuberculosis, and finally ended up with the (thankfully) boring pleurisy, irritation of the lining between the lungs and the abdominal wall. A couple days of mostly rest (just the attempted visit to the grove, and then the short ride to Benbow the next day) fixed me up.
Alissa: Leaving Ferndale in the rain, we rode though off and on showers all day. The best part of the day was starting down the Avenue of the Giants, with more super tall trees!
Our Redcrest cabin was freezing so we heated it quickly by turning on the oven and all gas burners.
Glen: Critical for today, from my point of view, is that our route went through Fortuna, CA — a town large enough to contain a bike shop, with a very friendly bike guy who helped me re-adjust my seat and gave a bunch of advice on how to make peace with my knees when riding.
Alissa: We stopped for lunch in Eureka where there were beautiful Victorian homes and an adorable historic downtown.
We continued to Ferndale to the Gingerbread Mansion Inn. The main street here resembled that of Disneyland with a General Store and Meat Company, where the host of “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” used to work! We arrived to homemade chocolate chip cookies and woke up to freshly made donuts, eggs, waffles and more cookies! We were the only ones staying in the entire inn.
Glen: In fact, Ferndale did seem like Disney — but oddly void of all the customers. We were also the only ones at dinner, too, so that when we stood up after we ate, the live pianist stopped playing. But it was a cute town. Below is a great graph of elevation vs. distance that Alissa’s multipurpose wrist gizmo creates:
Unfortunately, being the first day out, I was a bit overzealous on that hill that sticks out like a sore thumb, or I should say, like a sore knee…
Alissa: After a super delayed flight to Arcata, we woke up to pouring rain so decided to rent a car and head up to the see the giant trees after picking up our bikes!
We were the only ones in the park on the rainy afternoon.
Arcata is a super cute little town near Humboldt State University with a lovely main square and the best water pressure in a hotel I’ve ever experienced! From this old timey showerhead
And, it SNOWED!
Glen: Not only was our flight into Arcata delayed, we then waited an *hour and a half* for a cab to take us on the 8-mile ride from the airport to downtown. Note to anyone reading: if you fly into Arcata, be sure to have a rental car reservation. About the photo just above: the bicycle at the lower left is not either of our bicycles, we wouldn’t let them get all snowed upon like that, but behind the bicycle you can just make out a tiny little snowman that we built atop a mailbox. Our hike in the Redwood National and State Park (the only such combination park there is, I think) involved a long search for the Corkscrew Tree, as it is on an unmarked side trail. The search eventually bore fruit (er, pine cones?):
