Giants and Big Feet

A gentleman I talked to up in Oregon somewhere said "anytime you make it through the day dry, this time of year on the coast,miss a good day.

That being the case, I had yet another good day! Temperatures started in the 50's and rose all day, not a cloud to be found (not that I was looking), great scenery, saw. Lot and still covered 232 miles. What's not to like? Oh, my helmet fell off my bike and cracked, that's not to like!

Day started with a great breakfast chat with a friendly gentleman from Germany who's traveling the world (see "oddities in California, oh my").

When I left the motel I started almost immediately into the Redwood State Park, run in conjunction with but separate from the Redwood National Park. As I mentioned previously, there is something majestic about riding a motorcycle through a forest of giants.

One of the Giants has been labelled "big tree", a title that begged to be explored. It lived up to its name. The tree is 21.6 feet in diameter, 68 feet in circumference (although that is a function of Pi, that is an awful lot of Pi!), and 304 feet tall, estimated to be 1500 years old (estimated because it's rude to ask a tree how old it is). From there I ok a nice hike on the Cathedral Trees trail. 

As I headed south I took advantage of the opportunity to drive down the Avenue of Giants, a sight seeing route through an old growth grove of ancient Coastal Redwoods, some 2,000 years old!

Further south again was a roadside craft display store called The Legend of Big Foot Carvings. They had a beautiful sculpture of. An Eagle that stood about 5 feet tall. I asked if they would ship it for me but they said no, I'd have to take it with me. We mutually agreed that it wouldn't fit in my saddle bag with the tent in there so I had to skip it. It would have been a steal (and made their day) at just south of $2,000!

Just down the road from there was a roadside oddity named Confusion Hill where gravity seemed to be on strike.

This place has been open since 1949 and was one of the original roadside attractions that sprang up all across the country after WWII to attract the new growing families that wanted to explore the freedom of a road trip in their family car (in our case a Mercury Station Wagon).

Then the fun began. I could have stayed on Highway 101 which had brought me all the way from Newport, Oregon but I wanted to stick to the coastline and 101 wanted to make a bee line for the Bay Area. So I turned onto a 44 mile stretch of old Highway 1, which I believe was the original Pacific Coast Highway before people chose speed over aesthetics.

The first (approximately) 20 miles were some of the most divine mountain dancing miles I've ever driven. Betty would have had to pry her finger nails out of the dash board if we had taken this road while in this area on our honeymoon! I on the other hand LOVE the constant sway left to right to left, accelerate, then brake, up shift and downshift, and a motorcycle is the ultimate mountain dancing experience. Heavenly!

After going up and over the coastal mountains the road came out to the coast again, after being absent from the itinerary for most of the day. Breath taking seascapes again dotted the foreground for the next 20 plus miles into Fort Bragg (which is not a military installation). 

At two points the road was lined on both sides by huge trees that toward a hundred feet or more over my head, then reached out to hold hands in the sky forming an incredible canopy above the road. I wanted to stop and take a picture but both times there was someone behind me and I was afraid of being hit in the near darkness beneath the canopy.

So I am spending the night in one of the few vacant motel rooms north of San Fransisco on a beautiful California Saturday night. I plan to be at my sisters house tomorrow and between there and my brothers place will probably spend 4 days exploring the Bay Area.