Who said anything about staying in Eureka, California? Surely not I. I intentionally booked the hotel room for one night. The thinking was that if it turned out to be a bust, then we could move onto our next town. Well, it really wasn’t a bust, but the hotel didn’t have a room for the following night. So we picked the top two things that we wanted to do, and did those before splitting. First, we walked around the historic district which was nice. Lots of eclectic shops that would have been fun to prowl through. Not having a way to transport any of it back home we mainly window shopped and admired the architecture. Lastly, we went to the Blue Ox Mill. It’s a working wood shop on the outskirts of town. As Eric the owner put it, it is three things: active shop, museum, and a trades program with the local high school. Talking with Eric was a blast, and I recommend a trip through.
We headed north out of town on US route 101 towards our hastily chosen destination, Crescent City, California. No sooner did we leave town, but the winds picked up again. Easily 10+ MPH coming off the ocean, or bouncing off the cliff. Njord help you if you’re crossing a bridge over a marsh or canyon.
The wireless intercoms have been wreaking havoc with our sanity on this trip. When we have them in the voice activated mode they constantly shut off — way before the thirty-seconds they’re supposed to stay connected. I believe there is a firmware update for them so I’ll be applying that patch when we get home. To work around the quick shutoff we figured out how to keep the channel open — mostly. We did this most of the day yesterday and that worked well as there wasn’t any shouting into the mics to get them to activate before talking. However, having the channel open for the entire day chews through battery charge. When we donned our helmets this morning Angie’s warned her about a low battery and mine just quit. So the ride today was back to the old hand signals and leg taps which was made all that more exciting due to the wind.
Fighting our way north through the wind we stopped at Trees of Mystery set within the National Redwood forest. It is really hard to explain what it is because it is trying to be so many things at once. Probably better to simply send you to their website: http://www.treesofmystery.net. I rode on my first ski lift. While not being used for the sport of skiing, it does transport you from the base of the hill up through the redwood canopy up to and observation deck. Heights can bother me at odd times, but being on the lift wasn’t one of them even though we were hundreds of feet in the air.
After spending about an hour prowling around there, we headed onto our destination. In my haste to secure a room for tonight, after being turned away in Eureka, I made reservations for tomorrow. Luckily the front desk was understanding and didn’t charge a fee to move the reservation.
Interestingly enough we haven’t seen many non-California state plates on the roads. I don’t know if it’s because it’s early in summer break for parents to be traveling with kids, or people are just staying home. For example we’re about thirty miles south of the Oregon border. Back in Illinois we’d be seeing a whole lot of Wisconsin plates of people that either worked across the boarder, or were visiting.
The plan has been altered so that we’re heading inland with the hopes to get away from the wind. We’ll finish the remaining bits of the Oregon coast another time.