9/14: last rest day

We woke up late in the day, 9a. We had a hotel breakfast and then walked about town.

A pride festival. They had good hot dogs. 

Nice trompe l'oeil:

There's a lot of big murals around town. 

Zoltar from the movie Big:

We had Gabe get a fortune but not divulge it to us. 

[1 year anniversary note:
For dinner, we had dinner at Brick and Fire. Not just a good restaurant for Eureka, just a good restaurant all-around.
http://mengs-blog.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-good-meal.html]

I made final preparations for the climbs ahead by throwing away stuff I didn't need and hadn't used on the trip. 

There's the English expression "burning bridges." There's a Chinese proverb -- "smash the pots and scuttle the ships."

Going into a pivotal battle, you can abandon anything that is not essential. Either you survive and can regroup or it won't matter. I'm mentally ready for this climb. 

9/13: easing into our final rest

We had a harder than expected morning. Our difficulty schedule had this day as 2/10, but it felt like at least 4/10. We're going to carefully examine the remaining route and make sure the difficulty lines up. At least one climb seemed missing entirely missing from the elevation profile given to us, though.

We passed through Orick, which felt like a town left behind in time:

There were a lot of wood shops selling redwood carvings and advertising Live Burl. 

UPDATE: Orick has made a minor splash in the news a couple times since our trip:

http://jalopnik.com/the-ten-creepiest-roadside-motels-1568710860

http://jalopnik.com/green-valley-ca-you-should-be-concerned-when-the-owne-1567640197

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/us/poachers-attack-beloved-elders-of-california-its-redwoods.html

Compare to the rural Washingonian feel of McKinleysville, "where horses have the right of way." 

We passed a stretch of 101 that had water on both sides. The left is a freshwater lagoon:

We slogged up and down some potholed cliffside roads and even had to do a couple mile stretch of gravel. An old couple on a tandem bike told us to keep going to get good lunch. Check out his Sisyphean  tattoo:

[1 year anniversay note:

The man commented on how weed was everywhere, and how they didn't have any on them, implying they wolud have gladly shared some with us if they did]

We pressed to Arcata, which apparently is a college town, home to Humboldt State, the northernmost in the Cal State system. A lot of people were on bikes, which I guess ticks a few college stereotypes. We ate in a town center sort of place, which didn't hesitate to show its liberal attitudes toward marijuana.

Our restaurant was likewise called Luke's Joint. It featured veggie dishes as well as a deep BBQ pork menu. I got this:

After lunch, we biked a fast pace around the bay into Eureka, where we'll take our rest day. 

After that, I'm jettisoning nonessential equipment. So far, all I can think of is paper plates.

9/13 pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/105909573807230408134/BikeTour913?authkey=Gv1sRgCJbSqfCiou-WnwE