about 40 miles.
Today we had two big climbs to conquer....
The first started about 4 miles from the campground. It went up to about 1300 feet - 400 ft higher than we've climbed so far. It wasn't easy I tell ya-mostly because we were on 101 where there isn't much of a shoulder, and there is more truck traffic than before so we had to be extra cautious which is hard when your exhausted. It was really cool to start to see our first big Redwoods on this climb. They blocked out most all of the sun- but the spots where the sun shined through made it look like a post card or National Geographic photo.
The next climb started on 101, and finished after we turned off onto the Newton Dury Parkway -a smaller road through the redwoods that didn't allow commercial traffic :) It was great, esp when I got to the downhill- until I realized Cook wasn't behind me anymore. After waiting for a bit- I stopped a car and asked if htey had seen another cyclist. They said, yeah, he was fine but was walking. I figured he had gotten a flat so started riding back UP the hill to meet up (since I had the tool he needed to take off a wheel). Poor guy had flatted before the top of the climb and I unfortunately hadn't noticed in time (we also had no cell signal)...I ended up doing an extra 3 miles or so too. We rode the rest of the 5-6ish miles to the campground. It was beautiful, in the thick woods and down an easy descent. BUT the bad thing about going down hill after coming up hill is that you inevitably freeze. Climbing always makes you sweat, and this sweat, plus the wind, plus not moving, plus the shade - really makes it cold getting down to the bottom! Luckily our hiker/biker site was in the sun and we were able to get a fire started. Our campsite had convenient bear/raccoon proof boxes-but ours had a suspicious bent leg...
The new moon, and being far from any major city meant the sky was just FILLED with stars at night. Too bad our tent doesn't have a sky light...
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