I was looking forward to this. I love the climbs and it was a serious ride.
We started out early as we had a busy highway section after the Avenue of the Giants. The highway section wasn't too bad, but they get rather monotonous and I get worried about flats from all the debris on the side of the highway.
We eventually left the 101 and headed up the 1 where the climbing adventure began. It was a long, hard slog with an impressive grade and it felt great to reach the top. After refuelling on snickers bars what goes up must come down so we had a good, long, curvy downhill ride.
The rest of the day was a blur of windy roads and tall trees, but let's not forget lunch. We spent lunch in the town of Garberville. Upon arrival we were a bit taken aback. The town was full of mangey looking dogs and their eclectic, barefoot and dreadlocked owners. We found a little cafe to have lunch and had the most delicious bagel sandwiches we've ever had (we were also starving). We spent lunch sitting on an patio with the stereotypical French couple who comes to North America to pick weed and discover America. They were arguing en français the entire time which added to the bizarre ambience of the town. When we finished lunch we were told by the waitress to leave town right away and the same way we came as there were men with rifles around guarding their plantations. Wonderful!
When we finally reached the campsite at dusk, we chose a little spot beside Roxanne, a woman spending the night by herself in the rather empty campsite. While we were fumbling around with our camping gear, along comes David, another cycle tourist who was camping out at the campsite for a good while because he was working...picking leaves. Needless to say he was a happy, friendly guy and welcomed us with a box of Cheez-its. He told us after he was finished work for the day, he would come visit us with more food and his guitar.
We set up camp, showered, went for a little walk and had a lovely campfire with our new friends. David's guitar was the smallest, flattest little guitar that he hooked up to an amplifying device that used any large empty object (he used a cardboard box). David and Sarah serenaded us with their tunes and it was such a lovely, fun evening.
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