Trip to Redmond - The Redwood Forest

The next day I got up early and headed 5 or 6 miles down to Coos Bay and stopped and had a nice breakfast at a family style restaurant. Those are my favorite places to stop, rarely at a franchise or fast food place.

This was Wednesday, July 14th which was the 6th day of my trip. I already felt like I had been gone a long time and gone a long way. But there was so much to see...

Being on a motorcycle is at once very liberating and confining at the same time. You can go anywhere you want and do it quite quickly and efficiently if you want. But you can't ever leave the bike very far because all your gear is exposed and vulnerable. It is hard to take tours or hikes or visit interesting places for very long. To me I always feel driven to keep going. The scenery is like a fascinating movie playing right before my eyes. I see so much and meet interesting people I just want to keep going.

In the bigger picture I feel like I am on an advance recon to find nice places to go for when Susan and I get an RV sometime in the future and we can poke along and explore at our leisure. Many of the more interesting places I'll come back to when she is with me.

So I kept driving south for 120 miles or so on my way down to Crescent City, CA. It was interesting to feel the changes in temperatures south of Bandon, OR where the highway wanders away from the coast. Along the coast it was windy and cool and I always had a chill. But then the highway went inland for a ways and the temps jumped from the low 60s up to the low and mid 80s. In fact, I could feel the pockets of air move quickly from cool to warm and back again over and over. Really interesting effect...

So finally I reached California. I stopped for gas in Crescent City and headed south to the Redwood Forest, another 30 miles down the road.

I rode through the forest which was very cool but I only stopped at the site of the oldest or the biggest tree - can't remember which.

Good view of my cockpit.

After I went through the Redwood Forest I headed back north into Crescent City to find highway 199. I wanted to make my way back toward Redmond and the rally which was supposed to start the next day (Thursday). I knew I couldn't make it all the way so I needed to find a place to stop and I thought I wanted to be in the mountains as a change from the coast.

So I headed up 199 which follows the Smith River up into the mountains. It was a fun twisty road in good shape with little traffic. As I climbed away from the coast it got warmer which was a nice change after the last couple of days.

I stopped in Cave Junction and found a local brewery there. Fortunately they also had wifi so I got some dinner, a nice brew, and stayed for almost 2 hours catching up on email, weather reports, and map recons for my return trip. After dinner I headed south of town to check into an RV park I saw listed on my GPS. It was a sleepy little park right alongside the river. Had a good nights sleep after about 350 miles for the day.

Here is a map of my day's ride. Again, you can click on it for a larger view.