Hi Friends,
World Naked Bike Ride
It’s been quite a long time since my travel in West Coast has started.During June, Portland was the place, since the first day in the World Naked Bike Ride and afterwards the Towards Carfree Cities Conference and Pedalpalooza Festival kept me and my partner Tatiana busy all the time.
Pedalpalooza
A huge thanks Sara & Fred, as well to Roger, for hosting us so kindly and for many days! During the time there, we bought the equipment we needed for travelling, included Tati’s bike - I brought mine from Brasil - and did a “test travel” to the Columbia river Gorge, awesome!
Bridge of the Gods, WA-OR border
In July, we’ve gone to San Francisco, and there the biking continued, we used Dália and Velvet all the days, as in the Critical Mass and Cyclecide.
at SF Critical Mass
Thanks for Denis & Joana, as well to Jon & Karen, for being our hosts during these days. We went to cafes - as the Revolution, hosted by the crazy Marco, did nice guided walks with Chris Carlsson, went to museums, biked with Jon, etc.
office chair race at Cyclecide
In August, I’ve been in Portland, jumping through friends’ houses - thanks again Sara, Steph, Rachel, Elly & co, soooo much! There I worked with Roger and helped the folks at Clever Cycles (tks, Saraaaaa) to do some painting & cleaning, they liked my job and hired me to build some StokeMonkey bicycle eletric assist units. Sure it wasn’t just work! I hung out with the friends I made there and at the Carfree Conference and new ones, went to some home breweries, laughed at Tour de Fat.
My first tall-bike experience at Tour de Fat - photo by Meghan
At August 25, I took a bus from Portland to Tillamook and there started to ride through the wonderful Oregon Coast. During these ten days, I met lots of cyclists, either on the road or at the State Parks campgrounds, which are all at amazing locations and are very well mantained. The only negative point of this route is the lack of more alternative routes to Hwy 101. The southern part of the coast is amazingly beautiful, reminded me Polinesia - despite I’ve never been there hehehe… To be paradise, it just missed the warm water!
Cape Lookout-OR
In 3rd of September,I arrived at Califonia and met Tatiana, who was at a farm in L.A. New state, new travel: more relaxed, we enjoyed ourselves and the amazing region of the redwoods and lost coast. We stayed an average of two nights at each campground, all the way from Crescent City to Mendocino.
Our first stop was at Jedediah Smith State Park, by the Smith River, whose cold and clear water invited us for swimming, idea proptly accepted by Tati and Curtis, a friend we met biking down the coast. We also visited Stout Grove (reminds me of Sara ;) - one of the most beautiful redwood groves I’ve seen, and biked through Hawland Hill road, winding among really giant trees.
Smith River
After Crescent City we jumped Klamath by bus, to avoid some big hills, and biked to Elk Praire at the heart of Redwoods National Park. There we left our stuff and had lots of fun biking down the trail to the beach and Fern Canyon. The next day we visited the Cathedral Trees Grove, another amazing place to be among - and even inside - the redwoods.
Cathedral Grove
Back to the coast, we spent a night in Patrick’s Point, a wonderful and almost empty place. We arrived at night and followed the ritual: assemble the tent, store food on the bear-proof box, take a shower. Back in Oregon, the showers were free, in California they cost 50 cent for 5 minutes. It’s OK, as the Hike&Bike compground is even cheaper than in Oregon, at $3. The problem that night was that we had together only 2 quarters changed, so we had the fastest shower ever, at 5 minutes for both of us, and we even ended up smelling good..
Patrick’s Point
The path between Patrick’s Point to Arcata was amazing, as we biked almost all the that off Hwy 101, in calm winding roads. After Trinidad, this road was closed – just for cars! Great for us, we that could enjoy the view with no worries until Clam Beach.
In Arcata we had a contact, Richard, a “modern times nomad”, that was in friends’ house. That was more than the usual student homes we find in College Cities, the people were artistic, spiritualized and very nice. Lis, Mac & Zac and their partners Ryoko & Chimie (both from Japan), and Rio, whose birthday gave all of us a funny party.
Buttermilk House
In the other day, we slept among sunflowers at Arcata Educational Farm, a community project managed by Rio, where shareholders support the garden’s bounty and three people work. We were lucky to see them organizing the vegetables for the picking day, beautiful project! Some internet contacts and groceries delayed our depart towards Ferndale to 3 PM, so we just rode fast through Eureka, its 1-street Old Town and Carlson Mansion. The arrival in Ferndale was a little tense, under fog and at the twilight.
Sarah & Pumpkin at AEF
This neat town made us decide to stay one more day, exploring the Kinetic Race Museum, the preserved Victorian housing and mandatory tour in the cemetery – where we had a peaceful lunch. Our return was so unusual for the camping host that he didn’t charge us for the second night. While stretching in the next morning, we were surprised with the arrival of the local Football team, that made a funny training ganging their hands in front of us. We saw a little bit of the game, local Rednecks’ favourite program for a saturday morning, and headed to Poppa Joe’s to have an authentic american breakfast with eggs, bacon and oatmeal. There we met also Alex, a San Franciscan we’d see again later.
Ferndale view from the cemetery
Stomachs fully loaded, we slowly rolled beside Eel River by Scotia, town completely built with redwood lumber and money – it’s the dormitory of Pacific Lumber’s workers. Luckily people fought to preserve some groves from this exploitation and just beyond their scary factory starts the Avenue of the Giants, a 30-mile awesome ride passing places like Founders Grove, where an impressive set of standing and fallen trees make a special place to be, we almost stayed there to sleep inside a redwood tree.
Tall & fast @ Ave of Giants
Some more nights among the giants in Burlington and Richarson Grove campgrounds, then we started our hard day to the coast, when we climbed more than 2000 feet, most of it on the winding and light-traffic Hwy 1. The downhill descent to Rockport and Westport made the uphill worth, and we ended up sleeping listening to the waves. The sun welcomed us back to the coast, in the most beautiful part of California coast until now. After breakfast I even played a little in the freezing pacific ocean then we followed with smile in the ears to Mendocino.
Fort Bragg
We had already hints about this town’s beauty, and planned to stay there a couple days. But this is the next story…. ;)
All the photos are at my Flickr Travel album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/edugreen/collections/72157606824713655/
em português