a cycling adventure: day twentyone

June 30th
Cresent City to Patrick's Point State Park
56 miles

Up at 6:00AM. Made coffee with coffee maker and supplied coffee, such a luxury! Fresh bagels for breakfast. Uploaded the rest of blog since site was down last night.

4 cups of coffee down, feeling great. Packed up stuff, checked out, on the road around 9:00AM. Morning fog, perfect for riding. Looks like its going to be a nice day. Really dreading today's climbs but legs are feeling great.

Ran into the Boston guys, Chip and Mark, at the bottom of the first climb. Funny crossing paths with them again. They are coming off their FIRST rest day in 18 days of their trip, very impressive. We set off together up the first climb. Hardly any shoulder at all. Stopped after a mile or so and turned on taillight. Mark and Chip a little ways back. Kept climbing, legs feeling strong. Started to see first Redwoods!

Made it to the top finally and took a breather. Road construction at the top, had to stop and wait. Unable to take picture from the top since I had to haul ass once the flagger waved us through. Once we got through, I realized if I pulled over and let all the cars go, I would have the lane to myself the whole way down. Impatiently waited for the last car to pass, waited a few minutes, then headed down. Long, fast descent... so much fun. Started laughing to myself for some reason. Spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and Redwood groves on the way down.

Stopped for coffee in Klamath, seedy town. Gas station had slot machines in it. Sipped coffee and read maps. Hit the road again, found that 101 turns into a freeway shortly after Klamath. Another big climb. Got off 101 and took the Newton Drury Parkway through the Redwood Nat'l Forest. Breathtaking is really the only way I can describe it, pictures don't do it justice. Tons of redwoods, which I've never seen before. Fucking awesome! Nice down hill all the way through.

Stopped in Elk Prairie State Park for lunch. Bagels, peanut butter and left over pita chips. Hit the road again and stopped in Orick for groceries. Last 14 miles to camp very hard, more smaller climbs late in the day when energy is low.

Finally arrived at Patrick's Point State Park. Kind of a weird layout but whatever. $5 for hiker/biker, big surprise! Multiple people told me California state parks charged $10.

Set up camp, very tired. Starting to feel a cold or something coming on so I took a bunch of vitamin C and chugged a V8. Made oatmeal. Walked to Patrick's Point just to say I did, nice view of the ocean. Showered, made dinner - mac n cheese. Bitch to clean up, never making it again.

Mark and Chip showed up later in the evening. We talked about the long ride today and bitched about how the elevation maps where wrong. Mark did the math and figured we did 3600 feet of climbing in 56 miles - more than any other stretch on the trip. No wonder I was so tired. They invited me over for 'appetizers', these guys don't mess around with food. I feel bad I never have enough to share with them because they're always so generous. BS'd for a while then I hit the sack. No idea where I'm going to go tomorrow, not a lot of choices to camp.