Day 16 June 9th

Day 16 June 9^th

Stats: 45.80 Miles, 4:13 Hours, 10.8 MPH Average, 35.7 MPH Top Speed, 60’s and Sunny!

Today we got up early in our cozy historic hotel and planned out the next few days of the trip. To stay on schedule we would have to ride over 80 to 100 miles a day for the next 4 days. Since that seemed unappealing we decided to look for other options. After what seemed like hours of calling around we found a rental car company to rent us a car for a one way journey of about 150 miles down the coast. We quickly ate our free continental breakfast, checked out and headed to Eureka to get our ride. Of course we showed up and there was not a single car in the rental lot, it was just like the scene from Sienfeld, where the rental car company could take a reservation just not hold one. Molly stressed a bit, but was able to eventually talk the rental place into finding one for us. It worked and within no time we were taking the bikes apart and cramming everything into our midsized sedan. We hopped in and zoomed off.

(Yes, those are Molly's driving gloves!!)

We were able to drive through the redwoods and see more giant trees, one even had a house built into it!!

We covered our 150 miles, of what would have been the longest and steepest of the trip, in no time and just as we were beginning to like motor travel we arrived in Fort Bragg and had to give the car back. We hastily reassembled our bikes and hit the road for an afternoon of 40 miles on Highway 1!! The miles flew by as we raced up and down the steep California coast and we managed to only have one long stop as Molly found some new friends to play with.

Now we're sitting at our chilly 40 degree campsite in Manchester and getting ready for bed.

I know all you are thinking that we are crazy for renting a car, but really we are here to enjoy this trip, and 4 days of torturous 100 mile days would not have been fun. We started off this trip hopping to ride the whole way, but to really enjoy bike touring we found you need to have no schedule. We unfortunately do not have that luxury, and need to be to San Fran on a certain date so Molly can head back to Fort Collins. We think the adventure is richer because of all the paths we have taken, we have flown, walked, bussed, drove, and mostly biked this whole way, tomorrow we will break 1000 miles on the bikes alone, and that in itself is a great feat. As they say the journey is the adventure, and for us we decided relaxing after the first two weeks of long hard days was a better decision! Make your own journey, right!!