July 28th 2008 10:18 am

Vacation 2008–Day 1, Grizzly Creek

Vacation 2008--Day 1, Grizzly Creek

Departed Durant Hotel, Berkeley 8:30 am

Arrived Grizzly Creek Redwoods, Humboldt County 6:00pm

I had an amazingly wonderful ride up the coast of California today.  I hit the coast at Point Reyes Station, the end of Sir Francis Drake Drive from Marin.  I hadn’t had my morning coffee yet, but I was anxious to put some miles on before I stopped, so I just took Highway 1 North and didn’t look back.

Point Reyes is special.  After my wife and I were married (at the old church in the Presidio in San Francisco), we honeymooned at a BnB just outside of Inverness on the Point Reyes spit.  We had our own isolated room, breakfasts were to die for, a private beach on Tomales Bay….  We were never able to go back–the BnB closed down because it hadn’t received the proper permits to open in the first place.  I had half a mind to drive out the spit to see if it had reopened under a new name, but in the end, I just kept going.

I stopped for breakfast at a small café in Tomales called (easily enough) Tomales Deli and Café.  Teeming with locals, it proved to be a great choice.  I had the “Basic Breakfast,” eggs, meat and potatoes served however I wanted them, with coffee.  The place was small and busy, but the food was great and they had wireless internet!  This was important because, since my cell service is T-Mobile (motto: “no service where you need it”), I had to email my wife that all was well.

I didn’t stop again until Fort Bragg at 2pm, although nearly every turn beckoned me to stop and take a picture.  My wife and I had stayed in Bodega Bay on one anniversary, but we hadn’t driven north of Jenner during that stay.  The California coast is truly spectacular–the road from Jenner was a sight in itself, deterred from falling into the ocean by concrete pilings and reinforcing bands of steel.  Wherever the mountains jutted out to the ocean and the road hugged the cliffs, it was foggy.  Elsewhere, particularly inland or at various flat expanses, it was sunny.  My bike’s temperature gauge seemed always to read 59° fog or sun, though.  For reference, I prefer the sunny 59° to the other.

Fort Bragg was completely fogged in, which is perhaps good since what I could see seemed like any other ugly city (especially after that ride through picturesque coastal hamlets).  I stopped at a Starbucks for a bagel and cell and internet service, then a Longs Drugs for a bottle of wine and cash off the debit card.  I drove in fog (not in a fog; the wine was for the evening) until Highway 1 ended at Highway 101.
My butt’s sore–excluding the stops, I was in the saddle for about 7+ hours.  The images that stick in my head:  Arch rock, rust brown and black in the white-blue surf; Brown pastures with abandoned vehicles and cows sloping away from the road toward houses on cliffs and a further white of ocean fog; Green–roadsides, mountains, valleys of feeder streams and rivers, fennel, fern and reed.

I made Grizzly Creek and, hungry, I heated some water in my little backpack kit.  I spilled the entire contents of the kettle twice, but finally got some into the bag of freeze-dried Jamaican Style Chicken and Rice.  Ten minutes and a glass of wine later, I’m stylin’!

No Comments yet »

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply

« | »