October 5th,
Getting an early start at the KOA we headed to Eureka to stock up on our staple foods and explore the well kept Victorian homes. We found a great (although expensive) natural foods co-op so we were able to stock up on our bulk foods such as minced garlic and onion. The days ride was a real treat with my new low gears. It made carrying my old cassette not so bad. I was able to shed even more layers since the temperature got up to about 86 degrees..(don't know what that is in celcius but it was HOT) There weren't too many hills but I couldn't believe how much water I drank. Just kept refilling my bottles. The 101 had turned into a freeway so there were not very many trees to provide shade until we got to the turnoff to the Avenue of the Giants. Having not really read much of the book for that day I didn't know what I was in for. Turned out it was not giant hills but the giant redwoods again. Phew!
We met up with Bryan and Maggie right before the turnoff and decided the day was quite draining with the heat and to start looking for a nice spot to camp as we knew we didn't want to ride to Burlington campground. We found a nice clear spot on an old overgrown service road and made camp. This was our first 'real' wild camp. Rigel was quite worried we would get caught so he kept his voice down and used his headlight at a minimum. Some other bikers had told us that with the federal government being shut down rangers were going about kicking people off the park that had decided to drive in and squat. I was not worried as we were far enough off the road no one would see anything.
