Portland to San Francisco Bike Trip - Day 7

Day 7 Stats - August 25, 2006

• Gold Beach, OR to Klamath, CA
• 81.48 miles, 4081 ft. elevation gain, 430.88 miles total (18,775 elev)
• Ride time 6h 39m, trip time 9h 11m, start time 07:55am
• Average speed 12.2 mph, max 38.3
• Cities visited: Gold Beach, Brookings, Fort Dick, Crescent City, Klamath
• Total flats to date: Aimee:1, Pam:0, Preston:1

(This journal entry written by Aimee.)

A very long day despite leaving exactly one hour earlier than yesterday. Sunny, clear skies all day. Very windy.

One minute into our ride, passed the Gold Beach high school football team, running to some distant point down the highway. At first, they looked to be the cross-country team, but the heftier young men who were huffing and puffing in the back and the leaner young men in muscle shirts in the middle gave the team away. Aimee thought about yelling "You should be on the cross-country team!" to the lean leader of the pack, who was running effortlessly ahead of the rest. But on second thought, she thought that might seem sort of rude (Aimee is a former high school cross-country runner!) Moments later, we encountered the middle-aged coaches (with emerging potbellies) pull up in their cushy trucks in a turnout, where I presume they were going to meet the team.

We pedaled up the first hill of the day (712 feet) and summited the Cape Sebastian section of Highway 101. Just as we began our descent, we encountered John and seized upon the opportunity to snap some more photos. Unfortunately, in his rush to get out of the car, he locked the keys inside! After a few desperate moments of trying to open the car doors, Preston and Aimee decided to bike ahead to a spot where Preston's cell phone would have coverage. Just then, a couple from Colorado pulled up in their minivan and offered to bend a coat hanger and try to unlock a car door. Preston and Aimee pushed on upon Pam's urging. About 10 minutes later, John pulled in in front of Preston and Aimee with the car. The coat hanger had worked! A short while later, Pam arrived on her bike.

After a snack of bananas and Pepsi (for Preston), we pushed on through some beautiful scenery of sea stacks and waves. The lightweight cyclists from Santa Barbara and Kansas passed us, all energized and jazzed up about the day as usual.

We made it to Brookings, stopped for just a few minutes, and then made our way past fields of Easter lilies to the California border. Our guide book, Bicycling the Pacific Coast, says 90 percent of the world's Easter lilies come from this region. The air had a faint, sweet smell to it, and the sun felt good on our backs.

Within a few miles, we crossed into California. We snapped some photos at the aged California border sign. Someone needs to clean that thing! There was a brown gooey liquid drizzling from top to bottom. Preston was relieved to find that the roads in California had decent (if not great) shoulders for bikes to ride in, despite numerous dire predictions to the contrary from cyclists we passed.

After a few minutes, we veered off onto a side road, Ocean View Drive, which Preston described as scenic, but Aimee saw as needlessly hilly when Highway 101, which paralleled the road appeared perfectly flat. We pedaled through Smith River and to Fort Dick, where Aimee was startled to discover that the "restroom" was a padlocked Port-a-Potty! It turned out to be the cleanest Port-a-Potty she ever saw.

Finally, we pedaled onto to Crescent City, where Preston, Pam and John ate lunch and Aimee gnawed on some bread because she was bored with all the other food. The viewpoint was great, but extraordinarily windy. Continued along Pebble Beach Drive, past at least 150 pelicans floating in the ocean, along a river walk and finally past the somewhat dingy motels of Crescent City. Up, up and up we pedaled, over a huge hill -- 1,500 feet in all. It must have taken us an hour. The road was shaded, which was nice, but the big rig trucks made the experience a nervous one, especially since most of the road had little-to-no shoulder.

The site of Requa Road was a sweet one. We arrived at the inn shortly after 5 pm. What a lovely old place. Tons of great books to peruse in the living room. A nice fireplace, making the inn the first place Aimee has been able to wear a T-shirt on this trip. We showered. Aimee picked out "Under the Banner of Heaven" and quickly became immersed in it. Preston happily flipped through the pages of a Jacques Cousteau book about ocean critters. Dinner was at 7 pm. and very gourmet. We met a 20-something couple from Edmonton, Alberta (Rebecca is a social worker, Brad is a biologist) and another couple from Southern California (Lisa is a teacher, Ken works at a financial-advising software company). Pleasant company.

After dinner, Preston had a grand old time in the living room with the inn's cats!