The power went off at 2:30am and the 300 foot walk to the unlit toilet/shower building was a challenge to say the least. Hey . . . who is that breaking into one of our test at 7:15am??? Just Jenny returning to her tent wearing just about everything she had brought along, just like the rest of us, because the overnight low temp was 25 degrees!!!

It was a cold camp along with a thick fog that just started to lift at 7:30am . . .

. . . my panniers were frozen !!!!!!

As we rolled through our first town of the day, Akin, there was the Palm’s Motel that had an indoor type herbarium that was probably . . . 80 degrees. If we could have only slept in there last night!!!

Trying to become a platinum bicycling city by having green painted bike lanes . . . town population 289!!!

Nice operations center for the Redwood Park Operations, maybe they should have saved some money to pay the electric bill for their parks. (there would be much more to the story to come . . . )

We have seen elk crossing signs since Oregon and I have not seen a one . . .

. . . but there might be some ahead at Elk Country  . . .

. . . can you say ‘baiting’????

. . . and sure enough a mile down the road was the resort with LOTS of No Trespassing Signs and elk (evidently the elk cannot read English) . Paying guests only. But you could see them from the road bedded down in the long grass.

We took an undeveloped road for a ways that ran right on the cliffs over the ocean. We have been seeing lots of this Pompous Grass along the way. Not sure if it native to CA. Also lots of surfers along the way . . .

. . . mmmmm don’t think I will stop at this place to fill my water bottle.

Cal Fire Rural fire station. Tried to talk to some of the boys but they were all in a meeting.

Lots of trails along the beach and lots of people put walking their dogs. Beautiful setting!!

Here was an example of a well repaired area where the road had slid away. Instead of just patching it, the bed was replaced and reinforced and plant, trees and forbes planted to hold the soil. Expensive to do right!!!

A surfers paradise!!!

. . . and for seals looking for chow, too . . .

Here they are in the shallow water . . . looked like they were having fun!!

Denise and I were supposed to cook tonight. But Joe had trouble getting the ingredients for the Corn Chowder, with chicken or tofu, Texas toast and green salad we were going to make. The local utility for northern California, Pacific Gas and Electric, had turned off the power the night before at 2:30pm because of high winds, The shutting down of power affected over 500,000 people, including many of the people in line ahead of Joe at the grocery stores buying whatever they could, The power company said the electricity might be off for 5 days!!! Joe was able to get us spaghetti, sauce, cheese and bread. We had four cans of Clam Chowder Soup. So soup, spaghetti with ragu, salad and grilled cheese were the emergency rations we were able to rassle up for the night. The power came back on at 2;30am after the winds had subsided. Whew!!!

Everybody left the table with a full tummy!!!

This great pair of guides were soon to be history on this trip. Ryan was being ‘airlifted out’ by another ACA guide who was driving up from Reno to pick him up and get him to the airport in Reno. Tom, an ACA guide who lives in WA was being ‘parachuted in’ to fill in as the second guide for the rest of the trip.

One final photo of our august group. Goodbye Ryan and hopefully no surgery is needed!!! It had been quite a 48 hour period. An ADVENTURE to be sure!!!