October 1st,
We were set to finally hit the redwood forest. Mill creek campground awaits us! We started late having done laundry in the morning, but only 30 miles or so to go. We made it to Crescent City by 3:30 or so and were looking for internet to update the blog. Unfortunately, we learned that the camp ground closed! It was, in fact, double closed. Once for being out of season (oops) and once because the federal government is run by children in the USA.
Puttering around until 5:30, it got too late to chase the errant couple up the hill only to have to problem solve a place to sleep so we were excited to learn about a state campground in town (fuck you coos bay) in Shoreline RV park. Erin immediately hit it off with the grumpy, drunk, site host. He gave us a bottle of smoked salmon, which is better than the glares we learned he gave an older cycling couple we were neighbours too in the park. Jim and his wife had set up already, knew we were riding with Bryan and Maggie and saw them earlier riding through town (around 3pm) to go up the hill (a giant hill, bigger than we'd done thus far in one go. 1100 feet). They also gave Erin a shoulder massage, encouragement, and advice about changing the front crank on her bike from the road bike set up to a mountain biking setup. Now Erin had hope for handling hills in the future without the agony and frustration.
The campground was nice, if simply, $22 for the two of us with all the amenities though we only used the toilet and fresh water. Oh, and wifi! More updates followed here.
In the morning, since we guessed we couldn't stay at Mill Creek (checking Bryan and Maggie's spot we knew they had anyhow), we would have to do both the whole big hill and a subsequent medium sized hill and hope the next campground was open.
