Halfway

Crossing the state line into California 

Looking back - going by the position of the 'Stateline Cannabis' I'm guessing that selling Cannabis is not legal in California?

Interesting rocks
Passing through the giant redwoods - some of them are way bigger the the one Steve is in front of
Quite a varied day today and quite a few sections on quiet, more minor roads. Our longest day so far, bringing us past the halfway point of our entire trip (including the extra bit at the start from Seattle to Vancouver).  At one point our road dropped to the ocean and there was a real pea souper going on. At another place we stopped for a pee and could hear the barking (if that's what you call it) of either sea lions or maybe seals. I couldn't make them out on the rocks or in the water but we didn't stop to look properly.

It seems quite expensive here, not helped by the pound being at it lowest against the dollar since 1985. We were forsaken by our usual espresso shacks at Crescent City this morning so we went in a regular cafe as the 'last chance saloon' on the way out of town. I noticed they did have an espresso machine so we asked for our usual. When the bill came two pieces of cake and two coffees (which were pretty horrid - moral of the story: if you go in a cafe that normally does drip coffee, have drip coffee because no-one knows how to use the espresso machine) came to just over $31!! That's the first time we haven't given the obligatory 15% minimum tip!

We have pedalled 171km with 1696m of ascent, bringing us to Arcata.

I would wear my union flag cycling jersey at half mast if that were possible. 

Thanks for the continuing contributions to UNICEF - very much appreciated. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Steve's and Graham's Pacific Coast Tandem Bike Ride - Trip Overview

Image
      This is the blog for Steve Bateman's and Graham Dore's tandem bike ride down the Pacific Coast of the United States of America. Hopefully this will be a case of ‘Third Time Lucky’ as the trip has already been postponed twice owing to Covid.   Our original plan was to ride a route called the Sierra Cascades down the mountain ranges a couple of hundred miles east of Pacific seaboard but worries over forest fires and another fire season well under way have led us to jump ship to this coastal route instead.   As a non-resident I find it difficult to find my way around the US fire date but statements such as ‘ Year-to-date acres burned for the US is approximately 160% above the 10-year average’ are a bit off-putting.   A very nice lady at Adventure Cycling (the organisation who administer the cycling routes) said that if this fire season is anything like recent years, we would be better doing the coastal route – so, that is what we are doing. The Pac...
Read more

Busy Busy, Busy...Peace...and then Busy Again!

Image
Just after we left this morning this happened - there was a very light rain shower  Once we were clear of the extremely busy school traffic we were directed onto this - I have seen films where the car chase scene drops into one of these concrete river channels  Nice old ship Not sure what this is but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and took a picture anyway  Old Eddy Merckx hung at the place we had lunch .....and this poster. It was extremely busy during the school run after we left this morning, not helped by our route taking us right past a major high school. After that section,  there was the river bank path (above) and a very long section of beach bike path. While we were on the beach path, the speed signs kept flashing at us - I think we were doing 19mph in a 10mph area - obviously we slowed down when there were other people around.  The beach section ...
Read more

Murky Morning

Image
Quite a lot of agriculture again today  Not sure what these are - any ideas anyone  They mostly use these 'leggy' tractors for light duty up the rows. When the crops are done they used big tracked tractors for heavy pulling of ploughs etc. I really want a picture of one of those beasts - we passed one pulling a heap of implements today but it wasn't a safe place for us to stop. Finally, it brightened up and we had some views I don't think we have seen these since Kansas on TransAm  It was a bit murky and uninspiring first thing but that didn't seem to dampen down the big numbers of day ride cyclists we chanced across early in our day. We passed some on a fairly soulless road which shadowed Highway 101 (yes, 101 is back - we haven't seen that for a few days) - Steve and I joked about what the cyclists here might give for the network of beautiful lanes we have in the UK...
Read more