Day 45 Fortuna tto Burlington Campground in the Redwoods: The Avenue of the Giants

August 17, 2017

We woke up early and all was quiet. Despite our misgivings, the families around us managed to get their little ones to sleep and were quiet throughout the night, thank goodness! We managed to use the kitchen to make a quick bowl of oatmeal and wash up before packing up and heading out at 8:30.

Out onto 101 for a few miles, we pulled off at the town of Rio Dell to find a coffee shop. Luckily for us, they also had cinnamon buns, so now breakfast was complete.

Thankfully, the town of Rio Dell goes across a bridge and leads into Scotia, where we wanted to stop in for a few groceries. Jim has been craving oranges, so I won't in to the store to pick up some fruit as well as a couple of snacks for later in the day. When I came out, Jim was engaged in conversation with Debbie, a real biker chick. She works on a farm nearby, is close to our age, but is in no hurry to grow up. She was amazed by our trip and kept telling us how cool it was “right on!” said Debbie, “you guys rock!”. Well, high compliments coming from a girl who rides motorcycles and is in the process of rebuilding her own – one tough girl, Debbie is!

We rode through Scotia, which was once a lumber town and now looks like it is transitioning into a tourist destination. The older part of town was interesting to ride through. Right behind the houses, which were all the exact same small build, was the mill. I guess the houses were for employees of the mill. How convenient that would be – don’t have to go far to get to work each day! Not exactly a nice view from the porch though.

some bulls in a field we passed on our way - don't get in these guys' way!

surprisingly, there were horses in with the bulls - these guys get along?

a pullout before the Avenue of the Giants gave us a chance to get off the highway and look over where we were headed

After Scotia it was back on the 101 for another short stint before we came to the first exit for the Avenue of the Giants. We excitedly pulled off and began riding through this beautiful stretch of road.

At the beginning, we saw lots of Redwoods – big and beautiful. The road goes quite a long way, weaving in and out of stands of Redwood trees, so its a different experience from Elk Prairie, but lovely just the same.

beautiful shamrocks covered the forest floor

The Avenue of the Giants - yes, pretty spectacular

ah, now this would make a nice spot to camp!

There were a few ups on the road, but at least it was quieter than the highway with lots of shade to be had. The day grew warmer as we moved along. When we hit parts of no shade, it was amazing how quickly my energy level dropped off. I know. You are saying to yourself, “but aren’t you headed to the Baja? There are no trees to shade you there!”. This is very true and when we get down there, we will need to change up our daily schedule drastically in order to deal with the heat. I guess we will see how it goes when the time comes. For the moment, we forged through, stopping to pick up some freshly picked zucchini and lemon cucumber from a vegetable stand we passed by.

The Immortal Tree - it takes a lot to kill one of these!

can't not take a pic of a cool old truck along the way

complete with cobwebs - its been a long time since anyone's been near this baby

We made it to Burlington Campground by 1:00, so had lots of time to set up the tent and relax before thinking about doing anything at all.

Eventually, we walked over to the Ranger Station to look into a short (that is SHORT) hike for tomorrow and find out what else we could about this area. They had a great display about early logging in the Redwoods and it was crazy to think about small small people trying to cut down one of these monster trees with their axes and saws. Apparently it would take days to chop down one tree. I am thankful that not all of the oldest trees were taken down. They are so majestic and worth preserving.

at the ranger station they had this display

We also saw displays about some of the floods that have come through here in the past. The most recent was in 1964, where the flood level reached 32 feet. We took this picture coming along the road that demonstrates how high that is – amazing!

this is the high water mark for the flood in 1964 - I can't imagine what that must have been like

Another flood, in 1955, wiped out the entire town of Dyerville. We had stopped at the lookout to see where it happened, but there is nothing left at all, save the railroad bridge that used to serve this town. Jim took a picture of the bridge, and you can see from the display, how high the river was then. Pretty incredible.

the bridge near what used to be Dyerville - during the flood in 1955, the water came up just under the bridge!

Later, back in our site, we were joined by a couple from Lolita! Jamie and Angela were on a short trip just to the Redwoods for a couple of nights and then back home. The hiker/biker site here is divided into two spots with a regular rv spot in between for some reason. It was funny, as there was a group of younger cyclists in the other site and then us older ones in ours – I guess all the younger folks wanted to hang out, which was fine with us. As it turned out, we had much in common with Jamie and Angela, as she has just retired from teaching as well! We had a great time talking about bike touring and places will be going or want to go.

Later in the evening, as the mosquitoes came out in full force, Jim and I retired to our tent to play backgammon before trying to get to sleep. Unfortunately for me, the people in the camp site between the two hiker/biker sites decided that they really really needed to catch up and I could hear them talking well into the night. Oh well, tomorrow is a rest day so at least we are sleeping in, cause I’m going to need it!

Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 1,639 km (1,018 miles)

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