Jono's Travel Blog

21/09/2010 Day 21 Vancouver to Mexico

Distance Travelled: Cape Sebastian State Park to Nickel Creek CG in California! 100km

Money Spent: $6 for Groceries and $2 at McDonalds

Time cycling: 4 Hours 15 minutes

Total Distance Traveled: 1290km

It was a frosty and misty morning, I got up early so I didn’t have to deal with any park ranger and so I packed up all my gear and got on the road by 8.

My blood didn’t get a chance to heat up when I hit the steep hill down towards Brookings, my hands were frozen and I even had ice frost on my sunglasses.

When I made it to Brookings I headed into Fred Meyer which is a huge shopping supermarket where you can get anything from fruit to hifi equipment and even guns.

I picked up some groceries including some cream filled cookies for $2 for almost a kilogram, they tasted pretty good but I don’t think eating handfuls of them like I was is very good for you.

I also stopped by McDonalds to use the free internet to find out whether I have a place to stay in San Fran early next week, unfortunately not yet but I wont be arriving there till early next week so I have plenty of time.

Today I also crossed into the next state of Cali-for-i-a, my first impressions with the locals were surprising as one lady told me to be very careful as “Hispanics” will attack and rob you any chance they get, I took this with a pinch of salt and joking asked whether I should get a gun and she replied “absolutely”, later finding out in the 5 minute conversation I had with her that she had at least 2 guns, one of which was in her car. I really don’t think getting a gun is necessary for this bike ride.

Another guy told me that there are also some rough areas around and that I should be careful as Natives will hassle me.

See, all this actually got me a little scared like it shows on American television; striking fear into viewers but I think it’s all a little exaggerated.

Anyways I cycled into the first major town on the coast of California named Crescent City using a bicycle route that took me down some side streets beside the highway bypassing a prison (which isn’t helping my new found fear of the states).

I found the information center where I picked up a map of California and a cycle route guide for the state and I also asked about camping grounds nearby, of which one was free. I got a tag of my tent and set off to the campsite about 5 miles out of town.

The road to get to the campsite was fine but I did not know there would be a ½ mile walk to the site down a crappy gravel path, see, my bike is a road bike and dosent handle gravel roads too well, it was a bit sketchy but I got there.

I set up my tent and went for a walk along the beach, which was apparently one of the top 10 best secluded beaches in the USA. I met some old random people that I walked and chatted to for a while whilst picking some mussels from some rocks for dinner.

The mussels (all 3 of them) I cooked in a milk/cheese/oriental stock based sauce with 2 minute noodles and veg that actually turned out pretty good for an improvised job for dinner although the mussels were a little gritty.

Later some other cyclists showed up (Robbie and Megan) an American couple who were a good laugh and we spent the evening chatting and eating my cheap cookies before crashing out.