Safely Home With Fond Memories

I have finished out my amazing cycling adventure on the coast and am struggling to find the time to sit down and justly record journey in words. Long story short, we biked 1052 miles and it felt like it. We also got our money's worth of adventures and stories from our efforts.

First of I feel very blessed to be able to accomplish such a feat. Not only was I able bodied enough, but I was fortunate enough to have the economic means to do so. I am very fortunate to have the job that I have in such economic times.

Last that I left off I was just off of a rest day where I laid mostly motionless in a hotel room in Crescent City. During the rest day I was in a friendly competition with Brandon Robinson on who could take the most store-brand Nyquil in a 48 hour period. I think I won, but my memories of that hotel room are thankfully foggy.

From Crescent City we biked 82 miles that day to the Eureka KOA campground that was off the 101 between Arcata and Eureka, CA in Humboldt County. We saw awesome redwoods and had the opportunity to traverse some great hills. I believe this is the first time in the trip where we crossed 1000'.

This is near the top of the big climb. Note the redwoods, fog, moisture and my pale/sick complexion

Hanging with Babe the Blue Ox and my chest-hair mentor, Paul Bunyan.

We found the Elk Bros Club. I think there were about 15 bulls in the pasture. All had at least 6 points on a side.

Brandon is unshaken by the elements

We had originally planned to stay with a Warmshowers.org host when we were in Arcata/Eureka because it was going to be the largest city that was going to be on our route and I had previously hosted other cyclists and I thought that it was my turn to be the crazy hippie in somebody's house. I tried about 4 individuals on that were listed in Arcata with no luck. We instead found a KOA that had a hiker/biker option. $17 for the night and it came with a hot tub, laundry and mini-golf!

One of the crazy things about Humboldt county is that it is the Marijuana capital of California, and therefore the country. I personally don't use Marijuana, and have seen its adverse affects on others, but I haven't ever been real adamant on the fact that it should be illegal. That kind of changed after touring that part of California. We were looking for something eat that night and ventured to the town plaza to grab some pizza. We basically had to endure second-hand pot smoke as the sidewalks were lined with homeless drifters smoking pot on the sidewalk. I considered it quite unpleasant. At the pizza parlor we talked to a girl that was attending Humboldt State University. She said that she was from Oakland, but doesn't return for the summers because it is too hard to find an apartment because of the drug trade in the area. Apparently it is popular to rent apartments and not live in them but use the water/electricity to cultivate pot. Low priced housing is tough to find. 

The next night we spent at a campground/RV park where a group of Neo-Nazi-ish people had taken over the campground's lounge. Brandon had entered to find an outlet to charge his phone to be quickly escorted out by people saying that they are using it to run their business. The placed tarps over the doors/windows but he said that he saw a lot of vials/baggies that were being measured out. Legalizing and taxing/controlling the trade sounds like a promising idea, but I don't know if that industry would respond well to regulation. It was for all purposes legal in that area and there was increased shady activity compared to New Mexico where it is illegal and there is no medical marijuana provisions. It was just different cycling through dairy country and then passing a farm with a bunch of green houses and armed guards/razor-wire outside the facility. 

My rant is over for the day. Hopefully in the next couple of days I can find the time to blog this trip justice. 

Over Halfway Through and Way Underbogged

Danny and  Brandon's Epic Journey has now been through the state of Oregon and has now entered California. The last time I blogged I was complaining about the poor weather in Washington. The weather got better in Oregon and we made some great progress before I came down with a really bad cold in Crescent City CA. We have spent the last two days here holed up in a cheap motel drinking gallons of orange juice. I am not 100% yet but we plan on doing almost 80 miles again today. I think the best way to catch everyone up is to bring in specific highlights of the trip in a non-sequential order. Here we go ...

My friend Colin and his wife Melanie camped with us one night in Washington and we were able to dry out all our stuff in a dryer..
We later stayed at Colin's Parents house in Coos Bay. In Brandon's words they lived at the top of a mountain. I think he was feeing the fact that his wheel was out of true and had been rubbing on his break. That is now fixed.

We have camped at bruceport county park in WA, at a campground in Cannon Beach Oregon, Cape Lookout State Park in Oregon, Beachside State Park in Oregon, Colin's Parents house and at the most ghetto of them all ... The county Fairgrounds in Gold Beach Oregon.

We found the Prostitution capital of Southern Oregon to be Port Orford. We saw two prostitutes at 2 in the afternoon at the Circle K. We stopped for 10 minutes to have a snack and we saw more than what we wanted to see. The town has a population of 1500!

We crossed the talest bridge in Oregon, but were unable to see anything because of the density of the fog.

We have become endeared to the chinese lady working the front desk that continuously checks on our health and how we are recovering from  our colds.

I forgot the pump to my MSR dragonfly stove. We have not been able to cook with it yet this trip. I am stubborn and am hauling around a 3lb bag of pancake mix and a bottle of syrup for when I get a working stove.

Now I am handing the blog over to Brandon.

Greetings.  It is now my pleasure to share with you the experience we had at the Tillamook county smoker.  What a place!  As we were entering into the town of Tillamook (one and the same as the origin of the cheese), Danny spotted a sign on the left hand side of the road that would change our lives forever and the patterns of our bowel movements for the next 24 to 48 hours.  It read:  "2 ft of pepperoni - 99¢".  And to think, I almost missed it!  (I was in Lance Armstrong mode).  Needless to say, we purchased more than 8 feet of meat that afternoon, most of which was consumed that evening.  The euphoria that ensued caused us to ponder upon some of life's more serious questions like:  What would happen if meat was sold by the foot all the time?  Who really killed JFK?  Did we really land on the moon?   Thank you Tillamook county smoker.

Now that brandon has shared his most tender moment, I will continue my account.

I also got the Lance Armstrong impersonating Brandon to stop at the Tilamook cheese factory for cheese tasting. He claims to be lactose intolerant, but after the visit I did not notice an abnormal increase in methane output from Brandon. It was already at a really high level.

I got to go now, but hopefully I will be able to blog more tonight. We will be seeing a lot of redwoods today and hopefully will have good tales to tell!