Thirty six degrees at 7:55am and some of us were ready to roll . . . if for no other reason than to warm up!!!
We needed to drive through Eureka, CA and it was rush hour . . . including this chap who had LOTS of cans loaded on his bike heading to recycling!!! Am I back in Thailand??????
Busy road but beautiful eucalyptus trees along the shoulder . . . .
. . . on the way out of Eureka was this wildlife refuge . . . funny species to be protecting!!!
Soon we passed one of the PG&E power plants that were back on line, its turbines whirring away at full speed . . .
. . . and this redwood lumber mill was back in operation since it had electricity now to power the saws, Hundreds of thousand of board feed of raw product AND lumber ready for shipping.
. . . another river with hardly any water. Not sure if CA didn’t have a good snow year or if this amount of flow is ‘normal’ for this time of year.
For the next several days we would ride through the ‘Avenue of the Giants’, huge preserves of the giant redwoods . . .
. . . which are REALLY hard to capture with a camera . . . TOO BIG!!!
. . . big tree . . . big rider
Jenny stopped to buy some organic eggs at a stand in Pepperwood, sort of an enclave of folks holding firm to the 70’s. A variety of egg colors!!!!
We were ahead of the group so stopped at Shotz and had lunch and an iced coffee. It was actually in the 70’s!!!!
I left Connie across the street at the hitchin’post . . .
. . . cute puppy, reminding me of our pooch. Locals were walking by and giving her cookies!!!
Back onto the ‘Avenue’ where the temps promptly dropped about 20 degrees!!! Nice riding because most of the cars are on adjacent Hwy 101, but VERY shady.
If you don’t see this reflector and get to close . . . good luck at the hospital. That tree is not moving!!!
Got to remember to look up every once in a while . . . stunning!!!
As we rolled into camp, I had a nice chat with our camp host, Kip. He was rebuilding the carburetor of his 1991 Dodge motor home. Looked like he knew what he was doing!!!
We waited an hour and a half for Tom to arrive with the van and trailer. He had to wait for stores to restock their meat departments’ after the ‘run on meat’ during the power shutdown yesterday. We had a nice chat with Brad and Stella who were walking their pup Joey around the campground. They live in Pismo Beach and we will ride right by their home!!!
PUPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!