Day Eight - Crescent City, CA to Eureka, CA

Got going early despite the late bed-time. I was treated to "Meet the Press" which was on at some weird Pacific time as I had some coffee and got ready to roll.

South of Crescent City are the "Crescent City Hills," which peak at over 1100 feet so I prefer to think of them as mountains. How midwest of me. They did however climb though the Del Norte Redwoods State Park which was stunning in the morning fog. Atop the third and final peak of the "hills" it had cleared up entirely and was warm and sunny, but as soon as I went down the back-side of the the hills, I descended into cold fog again. I stopped at a wayside to use the hot air dryers to warm up and dry my gloves. There a woman volunteered her opinion that I had "amazing thighs." I thanked her and wondered why everyone else always focuses on my amazing calves. I guess I don't always go around in the bike shorts. It's your loss.

Going inland a bit more, I hit the "Trees of Mystery," a roadside attraction which offers tours of the redwoods, a gift shop, and an enormous statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. As I pulled up there were some young children (maybe 8 years old), who were climing on Paul's feet and talking to him. They have some guy (presumably hidden behind the a curtain a la Oz) on a microphone who would talk to the kids. The loudspeaker was somewhere near Mr. Bunyan's mouth though his mouth didn't move. This didn't seem to bother anybody. Anyway, the kids would ask questions like "How old are you?" and "What do you do?" When Paul responded that he was a lumberjack, one of the children echoed back what he must have learned in school about ecology. He told Paul that lumberjacks were cutting down too many trees and how the earth was running out of oxygen as a result. Paul remained silent, instead letting the child's ostensibly embarrassed (but I'm sure inwardly proud)mother quiet her son's insurrection.

Past "Trees of Mystery," there was another short but steep climb, followed by a very long and gorgeous descent through the redwoods. This may have been my favourite moment on the trip thusfar. With little or no effort, I simply coasted at 8-10 mph for about 6 miles of amazing forest. Lovely.

Afterwards, I had to return to the coast, where it remained crappy and cold. To boot, I had to fight a terrible headwind. I toughed it out and those last 30 miles were probably the worst of the trip. So best and worst day.

Got into Eureka late and debated getting a motel, but went to the KOA as I had planned. What a crock that place is. I had to pay $20 for an afterthought of a campsite (the hiker/biker site was the ten feet of grass between the back of the camp office and teh 8ft wood fence that separated the KOA from a lumber mill. I was too tired to look elsewhere though and my heel (or my Achille's tendon, whatever) was killing me. I could barely walk up the stairs to the showers. I went through my options of what I could do or couldn't do if it wasn't marginally better by morning. I slept, and waited to see.

For the day:
Rolling time: 7:00:58
Distance: 81.43 miles
Avg speed: 11.6 mph