Pacific Coast Tour – Day 29 – 31; Eureka to Standish Hickey – Avenue of the Giants plus Sally

Day: 29
August 15, 2021

Distance: 28 miles (1166 total)
Redwood Cabins and RV Resort (Eureka) to Ferndale

We had a short day today since we were meeting up with Andrew’s mom, Sally.  The ACA map took us on a kinda confusing traffic-avoiding route around Eureka. Being a Sunday morning most of the roads were empty so we kinda wished we had stayed on the 101 but I guess the quiet was nice.

The portion of 101 south of Eureka is a lot more like a freeway, so it was a little stressful riding past on-ramps and off-ramps, but traffic was light enough it wasn’t really that bad. About half our ride was off the 101 on quieter farm roads without much to report. However just past Loleta my water bottle rattled its way out of its cage. We pulled over to grab it, but a car came up and swerved to give us more space putting his tire directly over my water bottle. The bottle did not survive the encounter. The driver seeing my face and hearing the loud pop stopped to see what happened. When he realized he ran over our bottle, he actually offered us one from his truck. So now we have a thermos with a Bigfoot Believer sticker added to our collection.

We rode into Ferndale around 11:30 where Sally was waiting for us. We wandered around the adorable victorian style town, grabbed very messy pizza and coffee and even hit up the grocery store before heading to the room Sally booked for all of us so that we could spend the rest of the day catching up and relaxing.

Day: 30
August 16, 2021

Distance:  40 miles (1206 total)
Ferndale to Burlington Campground

Today was Sally’s first day of riding with us. We started off out of Ferndale riding on flat farm roads through the misty rain. The roads were quiet and there were lots of farm animals to wave to and make barnyard sounds at.

Being a country road it did come with its fair shares of surprisingly steep hills. Luckily none of them were too long.

Coming in to Rio Dell we had pre picked a second breakfast of waffles from Wildwood Waffles. We accidentally rode past it and had to circle back. Turns out it was inside a hardware store, weird…but still delicious and just what we needed.

We had a short bit of 101 shoulder riding, then the real treat began as we entered the Avenue of the Giants. We got to ride through the glorious redwoods again on mostly car free roads.  We even took a detour on Mattole road to go to the densest forest in the world, by biomass. 

The sun peeked out for our last bit of riding, and our campground tonight is within the redwood forest which is nice. We were also surprisingly reunited with several other bikers we had met in the past. It was a hopping H/B site tonight.

Day: 31
August 17, 2021

Distance:  48 miles (1254 total)
Burlington Campground to Standish Hickey State Park

Another wonderful morning riding through the redwoods. Within the first three miles we hit up another drive through tree in Shrine. Of course we did several laps. This place also had adorable houses carved into some stumps. And they were even two stories tall!

After getting our fill playing in the trees we carried on another mile and stopped at the market to get Sally some food for her return journey. Since we were stopped we also went ahead and had a super early (by miles) second breakfast.

The rest of the avenue was lovely riding. We got to the chimney tree at the south end, and said our goodbyes to Sally. (She has to ride back to her car which was left in Ferndale).

After leaving the avenue it was all sun and hills, so we were a little jealous of Sally’s return mostly downhill ride back to her campground.  We did get some excellent views of the Eel River though.

We were on and off 101 in the afternoon. For the most part there was a wide shoulder so it was pretty easy. There was one twisty portion where it went from four lane to two lane that was a little dicey, but we made it through. And even had a chance to stop for ice cream.

After more miles of sun and hills we finally saw the brown sign with our campsite on it. Conveniently located across from a store where we rewarded ourselves with a mystical brownie of enormous size.

Our campground is full of bikers today (several of the same from yesterday plus more), mostly because we all have a massive hill to climb tomorrow towards Leggett (our biggest at 1800ft elevation). So we started a campfire and gathered round sharing stories.

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