Land of the lost - June 3

Left Eureka, bagels in bellies, to some liquid sunshine, foody dressed like it was Boston in early april. Started out on a trail along the bay/Salt marshes then jumped on 101 for a bit. All the roads here have great, clean shoulders. Then as we were happily riding along, sort of oblivious to directions, we missed a turn. And started to climb. We knew we had a hill this morning, but this just kept going up. At some point, the altimeter showed 500', well above what we were supposed to do. A local assured us we were near the top, which wouldve been true in a car, but we climbed up to 750'. And thus renamed the road gratuitous hill. Finally got back on track through nice farm land, along the eel river. Met up with some other touring cyclists around Scotia where we stopped for lunch. And then the magic happened. We got onto the avenue of the giants - a totally empty road through old (up to 2000 years) growth redwoods. Unbelievable to ride in their shadows, check out the video. Biked into and through some of the trees too. Really incredible! 5 more (long) miles to the northern inn in redway, which is surprising nice with great showers. Burgers at deb's. 77 miles.

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