Prairie Creek Redwoods to Arcata, CA

Captions from the top: Palm trees at a rural dairy farm, Great view of the coast

Prairie Creek Redwoods to Arcata, CA
52 miles
Day 17

Another gorgeous day of riding. When we got up both of our bikes had flat tires. But we fixed them and still got out before 10. The sun was shining, birds singing and not a cloud in the sky, except for the regular fog in the mornings. I actually got a tan today. There were some nice ocean views and beautiful forests. We took a nice side road where we saw lots of people surfing but it (Patrick's Point Drive) was probably the worst road condition on the entire trip. There were so many potholes and sections of road that were dirt or had pieces of glass broken in the side, Greg said he would be surprised if we got through it without a flat. He had also said that same morning that it was amazing we hadn't gotten a flat on our front tires yet. Well, he got a flat on the front tire shortly after that sketchy section. We were in McKinleyville, which is essentially connected to Arcata by residential development. The Adventure Cycling route took us on a great bike path and some nice side roads to keep up away from traffic. We rode through neighborhoods and farmland. We even saw a farm with palm trees growing next to the silo. There are a lot of dairy farms in this part of the state, and so far the cows look pretty happy, just like the commercials say ("Happy cows live in California"). We'll probably change our minds when we see our first feedlot. We saw a small farm that was part of the Horizon Organics company as well. We stopped at a few bike shops in Arcata and picked up some new brake pads. Greg has been riding the last two days without front brakes because they were worn down to the metal. We bought a new tire as well. Hopefully this one gets les flats. Arcata reminds me a lot of Missoula. There are a lot of cyclists here and just generally a lot of people outside. Folks are really friendly. We stopped at an awesome grocery store kind of like Good Food called Wildberries. This really nice guys stopped and talked to us about our trip and routes we should take for over a half an hour. Unfortunately it ended up getting late and we had to ride in the dark for a bit before we got to the KOA for the night. The hot showers felt great, as usual.

Dani