California!

Friday, 22. August 2008.
From Gold Beach there's a little less than a day of biking to California. I bike into the city and get myself a breakfast. Today I'm aiming to get to Crescent City, California and that's about 110 kilometers, so it's important to start the day with plenty of food.
Well, plenty maybe isn't the right word. The pancakes I ordered were humongous. I took a photo, cos it's hard to explain the size.


Click on the photo for full size.

With pancakes in my stomach, the next few hills were easier to approach. Somewhere halfway through a steep climb, I meet a group of cyclists. Kyle bikes with me for across the hill and we discover we have some friends in common in Redding, California, which is where he's from. At the bottom of the hill I meet the rest of them.



A short break after a long ride. Southern Oregon.

There's a couple riding a tandem, called Jonathan and Heather (somewhere along the road they'll become Patrick and Megan). They're from Davies and they're biking from Portland, Oregon to Davies, California. Not sure what they do for a living.
Then there's Eddie (better known as East Coast) who is a funny guy from Maryland, biking from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico. He's a mechanic for the US airforce.
Finally, the guy I mentioned, Kyle. He's biking a big loop from Eugene to Portland (both in Oregon) and then along the coast down to Trinidad, California. He's in graduate school in Santa Cruz and helps fix bikes in his free time.
Kyle and Eddie had met a few days ago and then met the tandem couple yesterday in Winchester Bay. So, the group is growing.



Southern Oregon. Wild and pretty.


Before we hit Brookings, the last bigger place on the southern Oregon coast before California, we alo meet a couple from Belgium.
We stop in Brookings to have smething to eat. By this time we're all really tired and hungry.
Right where we stop there's a restaurant. The name is "One Love's Eclectic Food". Kyle and I immediately figure out it's probably a good place for us to eat, but he's skeptical about Eddie. When I ask him why, Kyle says "Well, he's not really like us. He's more, like, East Coast." "Well, what does 'East Coast' mean?" I ask.
"Hamburgers."
We have a great lunch there. All five of us. I get myself pasta & broccoli, wondering what would that taste like in United States. And well, it isn't a disappointment. Pasta is slightly overdone with garlic, but it tastes delicious nevertheless.
The lunch takes forever. When we're done it's already past 6 o'clock. The plan is to ride across the border and camp in some sand dunes, not far from a state prison. Hmmm. I have a host in Crescent City, just a few miles farther down the road, so we can ride together most of the path.
Just as we're about to get outside Brookings, we meet an elderly man. He's probably around 70 years old and asks us where we are from.
I say: "I'm from Croatia." and then I add "Europe.".
He looks at me and says "You don't need to tell me where Croatia is. Where in Croatia are you from?"
"I'm from Split, on the coast"
"I've been to Split. You see, you've been to my town, I've been to your town. I was there 3 years ago. On my own. Travelling around Europe for 4 months. I went to Dubrovnik, then to some islands, then to Split. Then somebody told me to visit this place... Plitvic?"
"Oh yeah, Plitvice." I say.
"There you go. So I went to Plitvice and when I got there, there's 2 feet of snow. I'm at the bus stop with my suitcase with my laptop in it and I look around and have no clue where to go. Everything's white. Then I see a lady and follow her through the snow to the only hotel in town. Then the next day I went to visit the lakes and it was beautiful. Evertyhing was frozen."
I just stand there, listening to this guy. Seriously, he's about 70 and he's travelled Europe for months on his own. And he carries a laptop with him. I'm completely amazed.
He tries to remember how to say "Dobar Dan" (a greeting in Croatian) and then he counts in Croatian. He says "I was learning Croatian for a month from a book before I went there."
We say goodbye and hit the road again. Kyle tells me: "This is the kind of guy who's probably travelled all his life."
"That would make sense" I say.
We keep on riding down the Oregon coast and hit California sometime before 8 pm. From there, there's still about 30 kilometers to go.



Welcome to California.


By the time we're around the place where sand dunes are it's already dark. We pass the state prison, look at the map and realize we're well past the dunes. Nobody noticed the road where we were supposed to turn towards the coast.
I suggest that I call my host in Crescent City and ask if there's a backyard or a secluded area where to camp. Ruth, m host, says she's got a huge backyard and it's OK to camp, so we all ride together to Crescent City.
One of the very few times where my gps navigator turns to be useful is now, helping us find Ruth's place.
We get there, chat for a while, get some food ready and by the bedtime Ruth lets everyone crash in her living room, so nobody has to camp outside. Crescent City is a cold place, so that's good news.