9/15: prologue to the big climb

77mi. Might be a record. Pretty flat.

By the time this is posted, we may already be climbing the hardest climb of the trip.

We headed out of Eureka to Ferndale, which was once again a fairly rustic stretch. 

Eureka's lumber shipping yards:

We then entered the complex known as the Avenue of the Giants. It is a stretch of road paralleling 101 that runs through Humboldt Redwoods National Park. The scenery is quite beautiful. Even though there was a full sun overhead, the tall trees shaded us, making it seem like dusk at times. The setting reminded me of the forest scenes in Jurassic Park or Return of the Jedi [which, surprise surprise, were filmed here].

Indeed, biking along these trees felt like I was in those speeder bike scenes in RotJ. 

We got through that long 30mi stretch and made another 12 mi to our RV camp site, where I sit now, listening to cars pass by as they exit 101.  

Tomorrow, we climb up and down until we reach a peak of 1800ft. It looks like 5000ft total of climbing. It will be tough. I think the last time I focused this hard on a single performance was when I took the SAT.

9/15 pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/105909573807230408134/BikeTour915?authkey=Gv1sRgCO66oa7yh6SI9QE
9/15 video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYUKnI4XK40&hd=1