Brookings, Oregon to Crescent City, California: California Dreaming
What a glorious day! Sunshine, yes sunshine, all day, plus a flat road, wide shoulder, and California!
A lot of this trip so far has been in the category of challenge and adventure, rather than just plain fun, but today fun made a comeback. The main ingredients are already listed above, with sunshine being a really big one. But then we added to this that mystery ingredient, "California". Things seemed to change magically just as soon as we crossed the border. Right off, some place and people's names were in warm sounding Spanish, the sea looked bluer, and we saw elk in a field. A lttle deeper in and we spotted the first redwood, then suddenly it was almost all redwoods. And in Crescent City, eucalyptus trees and pampas grass.
The forty to fifty kilometers into Crescent City were dead easy and pleasant. Despite the recommendation on our various maps and books to take a series of back roads, we just stuck with 101. The back roads may well have been great, but 101 had a wide shoulder (even eight feet in places), was flat all the way, and had little traffic. Plus, in spots 101 was closer to the water than the other roads, so who knows what ACA et al were going on about.
As soon as we passed this oft photographed sign, the whole feel of the land seemed to change.
We stashed our stuff in Motel 8, and headed out for a look around. Actually we had one errand, yet another mailback. This time the victim was our cooking gear. We have found that every motel has at least a coffee maker, and with that we have boiling water. With boiling water you can make tea, coffee, and soup. What else is there to life? Oh, yes, there is microwavable dinners. Most motels have microwaves too.
So there went another maybe 8 pounds. Pretty soon we will be floating up those hills without even pedalling!
The first bit of Crescent City that you run in to is the commerecial strip along 101. This contains most of the retail and lodging. There is also a "downtown" area, but this seems to contain mostly businesses that do not really cater to the public.
The charm of Crescent City, though, lies in its harbour area. There is a long pier from which people fish for crab, a lighthouse, and a crab boat harbour. On the shore by that harbour is an absolutley phenomenal number of stacked crab traps. Literally thousands. No wonder in the restaurant they brought Dodie clam chowder rather than the beef and barley soup she ordered. They must be drowning in this crab stuff.
Peop[le fish for crabs with gizmos that close on a single crab attracted to the bait. Pulling up on the little trap with your fishing line closes it on the crab. We did not see any caught, but we did see a seal! Seals and sea lions are part of the culture here, with many portrayesd in statues.
