Stafford, CA
Above: This one’s for you, Paul.
Above: A view down Avenue of the Giants.
Above: On my way out of the redwood groves, on the way to Stafford.
Wednesday, 5/31 3pm
Location: Stafford, CA
Coordinates:
40.4556 N
124.0557 W
Previous day’s mileage: about 62
Today’s destination: Trinidad, CA
Greetings, folks! I just stopped in the Eureka Chamber of Commerce to get out of the rain, so I’ll try to make this quick…
Most of my day yesterday was spent riding through redwood groves. If you’ve never seen the redwood trees of Northern California, you’ve got to do that some day. Redwood trees are amazing. They’re taller than most of the skyscrapers in San Francisco, and they live for over a thousand years (if they aren’t cut down by loggers). Riding through a redwood forest is a unique experience because even in the middle of the day, it’s really dark and cool, because very little sunlight makes it to the ground. But when you look up, you see rays of light coming through the trees. Incredible. Actually, my neck started to get a tired from looking up all the time. At the end of the day, I stopped in a “town” called Stafford. There isn’t actually anything in Stafford, as far as I could tell. Not even a store. The only thing there appears to be an RV campground. Well, works for me.
My plan for today was to ride through Eureka, CA and Arcata, CA. However, at about 12:30pm I ran into a rainstorm, so I pulled over in Eureka. I’ll have to see what the weather looks like for the rest of the day and if there are good campgrounds nearby. In any case, I’m not likely to get to my original destination of Trinidad, CA. No big deal; I had a rest day coming up soon, so I may just use up that buffer.
My other reason for stopping was because Tori was going to look into signing me up for health insurance, since my Broadlane insurance expires today. To my surprise, when I gave Tori a call, she had already signed me up, and it’s all taken care of. I had been concerned about whether I’d be insured after today (5/31), so that’s a big worry I don’t have to think about anymore. Thanks Tori! Actually, thanks to Mike also, because Mike put Tori in contact with the right people to get everything set up.
After Eureka and Arcata, there aren’t really any decent sized towns until Portland, so I may be about of touch for about a week or so. I’ll do my best to keep everyone up to date, but there’s no telling what sort of cell phone coverage or Internet access I’ll have north of here. I hope everyone is doing well, and I’ll check back in as soon as I can!
Tags: Travel
daviddmcmillan
May 31st, 2006 at 7:29 pm
yo big dave! it had already been quite eventful for what is sure to be an incredible journey. that’s awesome we get to share your views and thoughts along the way. take care and best of luck on the road!
June 1st, 2006 at 3:04 pm
What, is that some kind of cheap joke about you being tall? I think that’s kind of played out at this stage Dave.
June 5th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
That pic is pretty badass! Geoffski was referring to it this past weekend when we were hanging out…we miss ya bra! Ride safe! Btw, yesterday I picked up a new 2 wheel vehicle myself…a little different than yours though.