Nor-Cal! I smell pot...

So what I didn't know until crossing the Oregon border into California is that Humboldt county is the pot growing region of California.  Should've been self explanatory since every town had its own hydroponic wholesaler.

Since the border crossing was right on the coast, what else would I expect but fog and mist...HOW ABOUT SOME CALIFORNIA SUNSHINE!!!  The first sunset made up for it though...

Anyway, the riding started to get nice, the giant sequoia's started to appear and the redwoods just reminded me of visiting Cathedral Grove back home....except there's thousands more!  I was more amazed by the thickness of the sequoias.  They don't get as tall as the Coast Redwoods, but holy crap they are what I would say awe-inspiring!  I had more to look forward to since the next day of riding was mostly along the Avenue of Giants (30 miles of flat riding just next to Hwy 101).  Approaching the first Cali campsite was great too since they was construction on the road at the top of the 1500 ft climb....and the nice ladies let us go first and held the cars back until we reached the bottom.  UNBELIEVABLE bomb down that hill!!  Smiles all the way down, plus all the fat construction workers were cheering Noah and I on and trying to give us High 5's.  I imagine this is what pro-cyclists in the Tour de France go through...except without giant trees.

Noah on the way up through the Redwoods.

Just before we got to bomb that first hill!

Shades of the Degobah System...

Lots of stopping along the way.

Found another use for toe covers...they work pretty well as beer coolers.

I had never tried Coors before...let alone a 24 oz can.  

Me and Andrew posing with Paul Bunyan and his cow.

I had Skywalker, Andrew found Alvin along the way so we had to mount him up.

This was on one of our short riding days.  The campsite we stayed at was on the border of the Redwood Ntl Park, so we decided to go for a hike.  Turns out that 90% of this area was logged by the time the government protected what was left...and that wasn't until the mid-60's.  

Come on...too good to be true!

This was just before Eureka, CA (where the Lost Coast Brewery was...and I was pretty sure I would be having a short day after a visit there...cause I wanted to get drunk).  Anyhow, this was the closest campsite and it was one of these KOA private sites that were $9 per/person instead of our usual $5 state park fee.  HOWEVER...they make up for that $4 with ice cream sundaes, pancake breakfasts, a hot tub, home-made pie's, and internet access.  It was worth it...as the photo below shows.  Oh and as it turns out, pancakes with chocolate chips and peanut butter is great!

$2 sundae...plus free seconds if you sweet-talk the ice cream scooper!

Lost Coast Brewing sampler...40 oz of beer for $12...not bad!

Our crew was starting to break up at this point, that's Dylan with the beard who lives in San Francisco.  We started to ride together after some beers at the brewery.

Our last breakfast with Allison.

Next post to follow...