Back on schedule

The day dawned bright and cold in Weaverville. Clean crisp air. The mountains behind us looked as if they had another dusting of snow last night.

Our itinerary said we should be taking a grand loop up through Mugginsville (I kid you not!), Happy Camp and Orleans before rejoining the coast at Arcata - except that it also said we should have spent last night in Orleans, which means we are 140 miles behind schedule. Darn blabbermouth itinerary! Fortunately we had the option of heading directly back to the coast from Weaverville on road 299, and a rough check of mileages suggested that if we did that, we could make Crescent City, our scheduled stop for tonight.

Road 299 reaches the Trinity River valley 8 miles west of Weaverville, and follows it for 56 miles to Willow Creek. This is a spectacular gorge and we enjoyed the ride along a generously surveyed road that allowed for a good turn of speed in most sections and made for an exciting and enjoyable ride. There were very few caravan sites on the way, some residential. A mixture of pines and deciduous trees covered the mountains.

When we reached the coast at Arcata we turned south for about 10 miles to Eureka, another old Victorian town with beautiful period buildings, the most impressive being the Carson Mansion (now a private club) and the Carson home (built by Carson senior as a wedding present for his son) across the street.

We stopped there for lunch before setting off north on 101. This was initially freeway, but soon reverted to a scenic two lane road. We diverted from it at the Redwood National Park to spend some more time walking through forests and standing in awe of the trees that soar over 300 feet into the sky. There were several trees with hollowed out trunks that you could walk inside - one of them big enough to hold 30 people by all accounts, but we couldn't find enough tourists to check it.

Huge wooden carvings of bears, indians, eagles, fish, horses etc. appeared in various small towns during the journey.
        
                                                     
The rest of the run up to Crescent City was on good fast roads - much like we have enjoyed all day, so that for the first time on our journey we have averaged over 40mph and come 195 miles, which means we spent 5 hours on the bike. It also means that we are back on schedule for just the second time.

After checking in for the night on the outskirts of Cresent City, we found some sea-food for dinner. It couldn't be fresher. A walk along the beach was relaxing. The sand is a volcanic grey but packs well. It is very fine and soft on the feet.  Very few shells. The huge pieces of driftwood in one corner were amazing. The water is still very cold.