Day 8

From Brookings OR to Orick CA
Distance: 68.5 miles
Climbing: 2708 ft.
Average Speed: 10.7 mph

Pictures and Videos:



It was drizzly and foggy when we left Brookings - so foggy that we donned our farm equipment triangles for the first time. We stopped for coffee at a drive-thru espresso bar at Fort Dick, where we sat at a picnic table and had a nice discussion with 4 year old Chloe. She is a budding young botanist and dissected a number of flowers for us to show where the bees get the honey. Her mom was running the establishment and seemed a bit embarrassed at how friendly Chloe was.

We visited the bike store in Crescent City for chain lube, then found a nice park for a lunch break. There, another friendly young girl, this one was about 2, lost hold of her helium balloons and I grabbed them for her. She was fascinated by the bikes and her grandmother had to haul her away.

From Crescent City we had our longest climb of the trip so far, into the Coastal Redwoods. By this time the sun had come out, but the weather was nice and cool for the climb. At a viewpoint halfway down the descent we met some bikers from Martinez CA and Park City Utah - they liked my comfy Keen cycling sandals!

We had another food stop in Klamath, then started another climb, turning off of 101 onto the Newton Drury Memorial Parkway. At the top of the climb we met a cyclist on a recumbent - more about him later. He had a very cool looking rig, and even though we started the descent long before he did, he went zipping by us because his recumbent is far more aerodynamic than our standard mounts. We saw two elk (see picture) but then rode by a whole bunch more gathered in someone's yard a few miles further on.

When we got to Orick and our motel, we saw the recumbent rider there, and ended up having dinner with him. His name is Tjoan Liang le and he's visiting the USA on a 4 month journey which started in Atlanta. Tjoan is Dutch (small world, since my son Walter is studying there right now) and makes a living there as a cabinetmaker who hauls everything by bicycle and bike trailer. Check out his website. We also met Jan at the restaurant - she and her husband are on a 4 month, 15,000 mile tour. Check out their website too! Needless to say, Kevin and I felt like duffers in the company of these dedicated tourers! In any event, we had a good time discussing cycling and woodworking over dinner.