Day 19 - Fogging around in Northern California (600+ km)

Up early and on the road by shortly after nine, we rode US Hwy 101 North from San Rafael to Petaluma, a pretty little town about fifteen or so miles North of San Francisco, just inside Sonoma County. It looks like the kind of place you'd want to settle down in. It had an old, historic looking downtown, and neat old houses, well-maintained for the most part. The weather was cool, but sunny, and we rode calmly along a country road that ran between Petaluma and Bodega Bay, on the coast.

We had a quick (sort of ) breakfast in Bodega Bay, and then were slaloming up California State Hwy 1 - a mecca for motorcyclists.

The twists and turns are so relentless, you often feel more like your are skiing than riding. And the turns get so tight, you have to lean your bike much further than you'd really like to just to stay on your side of centre. And that's if you're a somewhat cautious rider like me. If you're a maniac, (not, most assuredly, like Colin), you just dive in and go, and when things straighten out, you go even faster.

This lasted, with very few interruptions, for about five hours. We did, naturally, have to stop for gas once or twice, and another time pulled over just to take pictures of the surf. It's so rare to see the tides not tamed by an intervening island.

The water pounded and crashed repeatedly against rocks the size of a large-ish house. In a strange way it was a soothing break from the road.

Eventually, Hwy 1 winds its way up to Legget, which is little more than a gas station and a couple of houses, for all I could see. There you merge back onto Hwy 101, which has its own twists and turns, and leads through unnumbered small towns and through what will be our last National Park on this trip, Redwood. Sadly, there was no place to purchase a sticker for my bags, which are now nearly covered anyways.

Before reaching the park, though, we had to pull in at Eureka for gas. The whole town was blanketed with low, cold clouds, which weren't quite fog (yet). We talked briefly about calling it quits for the day, as it was already half past five. It would be at least another hour and a half till we reached our target destination of Crescent City, just North of Redwood National Park.We didn't like the feel of the town. It was even sketchier than Vallejo - sort of like Greybull on a much larger scale. So we decided to push on.

The clouds lowered to ground level just a little ways past Arcata, and they settled there for pretty much the rest of the ride, with only brief, teasing moments of reprieve, where the dimming sunlight threatened to burn the clouds off. By the time we reached Redwood National Park, the fog was hung in the trees like disused curtains, or a sepulchral tinsel.

When we reached a place called Elk Meadows we found, of course, a small heard of Elk in a meadow. About twenty or thirty of them. A little ways past that was Lost Man Creek, where I supposed we could find a creek, and where at some point, I'm sure, a man had become lost. The place names are nothing if not imaginative.

We rolled into Crescent City about five minutes after sunset, and checked in to the first available place for the night.

Tomorrow we continue homeward, stopping for the night, likely in Portland. It should be a good ride, and Portland is one of my favourite cities in the Western United States. But with Hwy 1 and the last of our ten national parks behind us, the rest will be a sort of denouement to our three week (mis-)adventure. It's been a great ride, but it will be nice to come home to our partners, and our families and friends.

Colin is working on another video, which I'll post a link to as soon as it's available.