California here we are!

Brookings OR to Prairie Creek Redwood State Park

Our camping nights have brought us some great adventures! We've made a TON of friends, who we'll often run into at various locations along our trip. I'm pretty proud because I made our route without knowing anything about reasonable mileage per day, or good camping spots, etc, but the fact that we are doing a route similar to some seasoned coast travelers says that I made some good decisions! After getting to know some cyclists we've been introduced to an assortment of new biking vocabulary

• Bike Touring: that's what we're doing! We are on a bike tour! Its a multiple-day trip on a bike that requires the cyclist to carry a bunch of shit strapped on to the back of their vehicle.
• Leap-frog: The act of passing a cyclist on the road, only to later be passed by them, repeat. We've been doing a lot of this because we don't get started until wayyyy after everyone else has deserted the campsite. But we, being the handsome strong young men that we are, are wayyyy faster then most tourers, so we usually pass them only to watch them go by while we are at dinner at a nearby town.
• Inchworm: similar to leapfrogging, and somewhat self-explanatory.
• Prepack: the pack of cyclists who do the coastal route before the great mass of summer cyclists arrive. Apparently we are a part of it.
• The Main Stream: the mass of summer cyclists who embark from middle June through august.

It has been great to be included in the wonderful and diverse community of cyclists. Everyone is so friendly, "here drink this, here smoke this," "No thank you sir, my Nannan is gonna read my blog so I must refuse." Its been great. Sometimes we'll see a feller 4x a day, sometimes 1x in 3 days. Its fun.

ANYWAYS! We got to California almost as soon as we left! Soooo great to see this sign




The first great site in California was my future home, the Pelican Bay State Prison. I took a picture for Mr. Ernst (your welcome, Dave), and then got yelled at by a very scary prison guard (...thanks Dave).

Then we hit our first patch of Redwood forest! But it was along our biggest climb yet, at 1300 ft. It was neat though, we couldn't see the sky because the trees are just so damn tall.



We were rewarded by a 1300 ft descend that dropped us off on the California coast line. Niiiiice.


Then we hit the brilliant Trees of Paradise! Perhaps the dumbest tourist trap on the western hemisphere.

I remember going here as a little kid. Fun little nostalgic moment for me.

We had gotten a really late start because PP bike wasn't working up to his standards so we had to go to a shop. So it was getting dark. Turned out the road to our campsite was closed... so we found our new friend Madison, who was completely stranded and frightened. Boy was she glad to see us. We then trudged up a massive hill surrounded by redwoods in almost complete darkness. IT WAS AWESOME!! We were about to make camp in the middle of the forest but saw this light at the end of the tree tunnel.



We made it! Bought some firewood and shared roasted marshmallows, spaghetti, beer, and good conversation with Madison, who had asked to use our campsite. Good times!

K g2g!!