Day 16

Tossed and turned with dreams of navigating somewhere on a bicycle...

The dawn came easily through the laced windows in the room where Lluc and I slept. There was blue in the sky and I was relieved to see it. Perhaps it would last a while. That would be nice.

We had the last of our granola around the breakfast bar while our hosts got ready for work. With all of our things charged and dry, we  packed up and readied for a big day with an undetermined end. We knew we would go for the Lost Coast, and there would be a big climb, but we weren't sure where we'd end up. Hoped to find a spot to hide out on the shore, if all worked out.

We've been making it a habit to only carry a day or two's worth of food with us to keep weight down, but not knowing where the next store would be, we figured we should stock up for at least 2 full days. The neighborhood Murphey's was the spot, and there was something sadistically morbid about the cartoon mural in the window.

We got a spitting sun shower on our way out of Eureka, and we pulled out the rain gear thinking it would was just the beginning, but the big puffy clouds passed over without harm.

We rode a section down 101 and then took siderods through farmland, and past the College of the Redwoods. In Loleta there were sparrows swarming all throughout the air, and the ground was still damp. We rested in Fernbridge before crossing the bridge to Ferndale, which was a beautiful town with simple, small town atmosphere and very impressive architecture: many wooden, Victorian style homes and beautofully carved facades.

At the end of town was a big iron sign for 'Capetown / Petrolia'. "That's us," I said. The road immediately turned steeply up into a hillside and lost the smoothness of the roads in town. It didn't waste any time going up. Some of the steepest grade we've attempted yet. On our lowest gears and doing switchbacks across the lanes just to stay upright (there was hardly any traffic). Within 100 yards, we both had taken our shirts off and were digging deep into the slope.

The sun was peering around the still-wandering cumulus, and when it shone through it was hot. Luckily, as the road ascended, it tucked itself into a deep mesh of mossy trees and ferns, cooling the air, though we could see the dampness turn to rising steam before us.

We biked up and up for a long while, up and over many small rises and bends, breathing deeply at flat spots, only to begin again. Ferndale and the valley below dropped out of sight and we were in the mountains. The King range.

Around half past 1, we came to a barn where the trees turned into pasture. We must have climbed 1500 ft. Dry grass blew in the mountaintop breeze. We ate in a ditch on the side of the road before going on. Just around the bend, we saw what we had been looking for: the road down, and on top of that, perhaps the most spectacular view we have had yet. The coast lay bare before us. As we rolled along the ridge we laughed in dumbfounded giddiness: "bike touring is fun!"

The road was very weathered and the pavement had lots of surprises. Weaving carefully down, at a good clip, I began to exaggerate my turns into full S turns as if I were skiing, just to enjoy the way down even more. As the road bent toward the sea, we yipped and hollared at each other. "THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND" I remember yelling.

At the bottom was Capetown: A few buildings with no visible inhabitants, but a healthy population of cows. So odd to see them grazing here by the sea. We checked all our bolts and screws as everything had jiggled vigorously on the way down, before saddling up for the next hill: Cape Mendocino. Only about 800 ft this time, but it felt much harder than the first, somehow. My legs got tired sooner, like using a battery-powered drill that's running out of juice: it runs weakly, you give it a break, runs quickly for a second and then runs even slower...

Eventually we were on top. As sweaty as ever and back to our jubilant selves when we saw over the other side. "Are we on Earth??" I thought coming down that last stretch. The road dove down steeply by a massive rock outcropping, before riding right along the beach for several miles. Riding side by side, Lluc wondered aloud: "What's the deal with this place? It's beautiful and there's no one here, and we're still in California. What's the catch?"

I have no idea. Was it just because the road was long and difficult? Whatever the reason, we were basking in it: warm afternoon sun, ocean mist, dry grasses, and not a soul to be seen. A couple pick-ups passed us here aknd there, but no one that looked as though they were sightseeing.

Where the road began to turn inland again, we found a hole in the barbed wire fence, and pushed our bikes down a sandy road towards a big rock standing up above the dunes. A burned and rusted out truck lay in the grass next to it. Out of sight of the road and near a small freshwater stream (though it smelled a little of cow dung), it would make a fine camp.

We set up, drank some water (both feeling a little dehydrated), stretched, and took our nightly walk to the beach, where we watched the waved break over the rough black rocks. The sand here too was a dark black, and course.This must be the edge of the world... At sunset, we scaled the big rock only to find a USGS marker. "Dome RK" it said.

We made rice as the stars came out and lay on out backs digesting, watching them twinkle and grow. This is what it's all about. Everything feels as though its being used to its fullest: all our gear, all our muscles, all our will. And here we are, content. "We biked here," Lluc remarks with awe. "Yeah, we did."