Day 22-25: Get Comfy, it's a long one.

Jet's favorite place, the beach.

A much needed break outside Crescent City.

Day 22, we left Salmon Harbor really excited to get into redwood country.  It was one of the areas that we had both really been looking forward to.  We were in the right area but needed to get vertical and we started right out of Crescent City.  We heard from a variety of sources that California offered snake like roads, no shoulders, and unforgiving hills.  True to their word, the Redwood highway was all the above plus a relentless stream of logging trucks.  From near sea level to 1,200+ ft of this mountain we quickly became vertical.  It may sound crazy but going up is by far the easy part.  Flying down a mountain with questionable breaks while getting sliver's from passing logging trucks was the hard part. Without pedaling we arrived back at sea level to an area for a much needed rest break and grub. After getting too comfortable we headed off for the a State Park that unbeknownst to us was a seasonal campground and closed. So what do you do with no phone reception and no back-up plan to speak of? Cry, thats what! We had already cycled 65+ miles, nearly got hit by a semi, we were in the middle of nowhere, it was 6pm,  and the next small town, of less than 100 people, had 1 motel that was not pet friendly.  I was about to knock on some strangers door and plead to camp outside when Matt talked me into pushing onward. With my eyes full of tears, we cycled 10 more miles and gratefully stumbled upon Elk Prairie RV Park.

Naps, we get them in when we can.

Remember when phones had cords? ...Calling home to check in.

Mythic creatures abound in the lost coast.

For some reason it always happens at 3 am.  "Matt...do you hear that?  There is something out there.  What do we do?" Which is generally followed by "Go back to bed, I can't wrestle all the raccoons."  Only this time it wasn't raccoons, owls, a skunk or barking seals that came calling late in the night. This night a herd of elk moseyed past our tent close enough to cast an ominous shadow over our tent. It was as close to getting trampled on as we have ever been.  Guess we should have anticipated them with a campground named Elk Prairie. Luckily, Jet the guard dog slept right through the slow-mo stampede.  In the morning we were able to snap a few pics of the herd.

Big papa bugled all evening and then came
through camp with his harem before dawn.

It was odd to see elk headed to the beach;  I guess all
things need a vacation now and again.

Lots of trees, shade, and hardly any cars.

After taking pics of the elk, day 23 was off to a good start but we had places to go and pedals to push so we did not linger long.  We continued on the redwood highway and decided to take the Avenue of the Giants scenic alternate.  It is hard to put into words or pictures for that matter what an awesome feeling it was to pedal under these giants.  We passed under trees that were 1,000+ years old and approaching 400 ft in awe and silence for a majority of the 25 mile avenue.  Feeling small never felt so good and its a shame each day's ride doesn't make us feel this way. After playing in, on and in between the giants, we had the privilege of sleeping under the them at Humboldt Redwood State Park.

  

Julie easily won the "wall" sit challenge.

Day 24 continued through the Avenue of the giants for most of the morning. We arrived at the drive thru-tree shrine excited to snap a picture only to find that we had to pay cash to see the tree. With only plastic in our pockets we settled for a giant wooden hand carved Bigfoot instead. We quickly got back on the road as our maps indicated the rest of today would be a constant climb.  We have passed through several sketchy towns but today seemed to be an unusual day of endless eery and sketchy towns.  In one small town we passed, there appeared to be a hobo convention going on, with at least a hundred homeless people in a town with a population of 150.  We pedaled as quick as we could passed the town and not 5 miles out Matt got a flat.  It never fails anytime someone inquires about how many flats we've had, the next day we end up with at least one. The night before we had met a man and his son who said we were lucky to only have had 3 flats in over a 1,000 miles.  So we sat on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere while Matt changed his flat. We took off and about 20 miles later Matt had another flat but luckily it was near a bridge and in the shade.  Usually I time Matt and see if he can set a personal record, this time we opened a bag of chips, some gatorade and enjoyed the break. We finally made it to camp and met 7 other cyclist headed towards San Francisco. We shared stories about the ride in and the dreaded Leggett (the highest point along the Pacific Bike Route) to come. We all decided to hit the hay earlier to get a good nights rest for the big climb tomorrow.

Too bad it wasn't free.  Next time.

Julie will never look at a penny quite the same way.

Sometimes the miles come easy....

Broken sunglasses,  chain lube eyeblack to the rescue.

....and sometimes they don't

.

Julie and I easily defeated the dreaded Leggett.

Day 25,  we had been hearing about this thing called Leggett for the better part of a month and were pretty concerned about what we were in store for. We woke up early to leave camp by 8am only to find Matt had another flat. He quickly changed it and as we headed out he got a second flat.  With all the other cyclist already gone, Matt in record speed changed the tube with his last tube and we were off. Our maps stated that we would be headed up for what seemed like 20 miles so we prepared for a very long and hard day.  We are not sure if we were ready for Leggett or if we had gotten so psyched over the last month that it could have never been as hard as our imagination's led us to believe.  Whichever it was, it was not so bad.  It was uphill for a good hour or two but when you are in such good company the time just flies. And as we have been saying these past few weeks, what goes up, must come down.  The snake like turns and speed was for the most part pretty awesome. It was so early in the day no one was on the road except us.  The most difficult aspect of the day was nursing Matt's last tube which had a slow leak back to health at least four times throughout the day. As we were cycling into camp Jet's tire got it's first flat.  We walked the last 1/2 mile into camp with 2 flat tires. Surprisingly we arrived in camp before 2pm and decided to celebrate a cyclists birthday and Leggett by biking into Fort Bragg.  We picked up some spare tubes and enjoyed some mexican food.

Matt, Addison, and Marty after Leggett. Happy B-Day Addison!

On highway 1.

Jet making friends in camp with Marty.

Matt nursing his slow leak for the fourth time that day.

Highway 1 and it's occasional shoulder.

Matt, Chris, Addison,Homer and Marty

We spent a few days with these guys and faced the highest climb on the pacific bike route with them.  Homer has done the route 6 times!

The Cali Gang.

Fort Braggs,Ca.