We woke early again this morning and were on the road just before 7am. The next coffee shop was over 25 miles away on the other side of some big hills, so we decided to make coffee at camp before we left. This decision proved to be a profitable one because, for the second day in a row, we clocked up over 60km before noon. If we had looked around for a coffee shop we wouldn’t had reached anywhere near that much distance before noon During the first hour of the morning we continued on Hwy 101 but soon had the opportunity to get off the busy highway and join a quiet country road at Ophir. We continued on this side road for over 15 miles, and ended up in the town of Wedderburn. The road was kind in many ways, there was little or no traffic, the inclines were gentle, the road was full of beautiful houses with manicured lawns, and we saw a medium-size doe, at close quarters.
On the outskirts of Gold Beach we joined back up with Hwy 101 and welcomed the sights of the stunning coastline once again. I enjoyed the variety of riding today. It did help that we had a Chetwyndesque tailwind that pushed us through almost to our destination. According to the inaccurate elevation profiles that came with our maps, we were supposed to have finished our toughest climbs by early afternoon, but as usual the day had the last laugh. The period from 12:30-2:00pm, when we arrived at Harris Beach, seemed to be the most difficult. Both Suzanne and I are renowned early morning riders, so perhaps we had just had enough of the sun for the day, because it was difficult last portion of the day.
It was nice to get into camp early. We stretched at the beach and took in the sites of the windy day. Kites were flying, and people were being blown around the beach like drifting sand. All along the coast I’ve seen these large rocks protruding out of the ocean like soldiers standing to attention. They have different names depending which town you are in. In Cannon Beach they are called haystacks whereas in Gold Beach they are called table tops. Whichever name you choose to give them, each one is uniquely shaped by the constant battering of the ocean’s waves. As you can probably imagine, each carving is a work of art.
Today we are about 30 miles from our destination, Crescent City, California, so this evening we needed to make some decisions about the trip. We had planned for the trip to take anywhere from 3-4 weeks. When we arrive in Crescent City tomorrow, it will have taken less than 2 1/2 weeks. It didn’t take long for us to come to the conclusion that we’d like to extend the trip and head to San Francisco. Two years ago we rode from San Francisco to San Diego, so adding the extra 400 miles to the trip will allow us the honour of saying that we have biked from the Yukon all the way down to the US-Mexico boarder. We anticipate the extra millage will take 9 days. We should, in theory, be home within the 4 week schedule we set out with. This means there will be plenty more blogs postings to come. Please continue to post comments. It gives us something to read in the evenings:)
Tomorrow we ride to California!
