September 14 - Monday - We woke to a cloudy morning. It was dry when we walked to breakfast but it started raining while we were eating. A couple of other cyclists were there too and we all agreed that yesterday was one tough day.........and they were a lot younger than us! Back at the room, we contemplated the rain and the headwind until 9:00. We decided to head to Crescent City so that we would only be a half day behind schedule after working so hard to get back on it.
This area is considered the Easter Lily Capital of the World. We just couldn't figure out why the sprinklers were on since we were getting pretty wet without them. About 10:15 we pulled into the Cur Del Farmer's Coop Store to pick up a syringe for oiling the derailleurs. It immediately started pouring so we just hung out for a bit. They had nice restrooms and free coffee so it made a nice rest stop.
The California Ag Inspection station. The agent just waved us through with good wishes for our journey. Maybe we just looked too wet.
Goodby Oregon
Hello California. We stopped for something hot about an hour later (11:30) at the T&K Deli. He had just finished making some vegetable beef soup which sounded perfect for warming us up. It was good and it was only $1.50 for a whole bowl full. What a deal! We left Hwy. 101 at this point and took Sarena Road, which took us to the village of Smith River.
Smith River.......another flat.....Donna's rear tire this time (glass). We had it fixed in 20 minutes....just too much practice. The good news was that it stopped raining about 5 minutes before and the sun even peeked out while we were stopped. A few miles later we even took off all our rain gear so it looked like our strategy was going to work.
We took the Lake Earl Road which is a very pleasant route and relatively flat though a terrific headwind made it feel like we were going uphill the whole time. About 5 miles from Crescent City, Doug's front wheel popped another spoke so we got to visit the very friendly folks at this bike shop, Back Country Bicycles. There was a diner just a couple of doors down so we filled our wait with a waffle ice cream cone.
Even though the sun was out, we decided to call it a day in Crescent City as we didn't feel like we had really recovered from yesterday. We found a room at the Penny Saver Inn at the early hour of 3:00 and took a nice warm shower. We explored the town the rest of the afternoon. This is the Battery Point Lighthouse and is only accessible on foot at low tide.
It was nice to ride our bikes around without the weight of the panniers. They (almost) felt like feathers.
A dolo, which weighs 40 tons. There are 768 of them protecting Crescent City harbor along with 3530 tetrapods....so says the brass plaque. They were placed at the outer breakwater and 20 of them have instrumentation that measures the stress produced by the force of the water. This is the only West Coast site with this capability.
Redwood National Park Visitor Center had a very informative interpretive display about the 1964 tsunami that hit this area very hard.
The tsunami was the result of the big Alaska earthquake. It took 4 hours to reach Crescent City. Four large waves battered the city over the next several hours, leaving 29 city blocks destroyed and 12 people dead, a very traumatic event for this small town.
We walked over to the Harborview Grotto for fish and chips. On the way back we ran into a group of cyclists from Denver that had flown into Redding, then cycled over to the coast on their way to San Francisco. Back at the motel, Doug cleaned the bikes with a handy hose by the swimming pool building and Donna finished the journal for the day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky as the sun set...hopefully a really good sign.
36.5 miles today for a total of 456 miles
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