I started out the last day of my trip on the coast in Northern California. I left at the crack of dawn and headed North on 101 into a dense fog. It was surprisingly cold and everything was covered in a layer of condensation. I stopped a few miles in and put on my warmer layers. It was in the low 40s with light rain and it was sucking the heat right out of me. I headed North for about an hour before hitting the last park of the trip.
I arrived at Redwood National Park shortly after sunrise and the ride through was magical. I didn’t see another car the whole time, there were patches of low hanging fog all around the trees . Being the star wars geek that I am, it felt like I was riding a speeder-bike through Endor (only without the crashing part)
The scale of these trees is truly impressive I tried to take photos of the woods, but everything is huge and is just looks like normal trees. I took pictures with my bike for scale
I couldn’t spend very much time in the park, the rain had been chilling me to the bone on the hour ride in. I needed a place to stop a for a bit and warm up. I stopped in the next town and got some coffee. Didn’t even drink it, just held it in my hands for a while to get some warmth.
I briefly considered jumping on I5 rather than continuing up the coast. Knowing everything would heat up 10 degrees if I got away from the Ocean made it a fairly tempting option, but I5 is such a soul sucking (boring) experience that I decided against it. I put on an extra layer and continued North on the coast hoping the fog and rain would burn off.
After about 50 miles or so the sun finally peeked out and it started to warm up. I kept heading up the coast on 101. Being a Friday, there was a little bit of traffic to deal with, but the road is so broken up by little towns with low speeds limits that I was fine with a relaxed pace.
Seeing the end in sight, I didn’t stop much along this route. Hard to really describe, I did not want the trip to end, but in that last 300 miles I only wanted to get back home to my own bed. I arrived back in the Portland area just in time to experience the Friday afternoon rush hour...
Total Miles: 3053
Total Miles for the Day: 424
Highest Elevation: 1141
Lowest Elevation: -118
Killer Piece of Gear: Under Armor Cold Gear
Best part of the day: Riding through Redwood Forest
Worst part of the day: The cold
Final Thoughts
I can’t really put into words how amazing this whole trip was. I hadn’t done any really long distance touring before this and wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. I almost bailed after the first two days didn’t meet my expectations, but am so thankful I didn’t. I saw more cool stuff in 10 days than I thought possible, and experiencing it on the back of a motorbike added a whole extra dimension to traveling. I’m already planning my next trip.