Day 11: The Scenic Route

Day 11: Manchester State Park, Hwy 1, California coast

Distance for the day: 322.0 km

Cumulative distance: 2,184.8 km

Top speed: 115 kph

Moving average: 63 kph

Temperature: 16.0 - 28.2

This was an absolutely stunning day today. 

I have talked about this before but for the benefit of new readers, I'll just tell this story again. We use a Garmin GPS for navigation. The procedure is to enter a destination either by entering the address, just the city name or the name of the destination and usually the GPS can find the destination. Sometimes not and it is necessary to enter the GPS coordinates. Then there are two settings: either shortest distance or fasted route. Lastly, It is possible to identify "avoidances" like toll roads, ferries, gravel roads, U-turns, and also "highways". I like this last setting because it keeps us off the interstate highways, which are multi-laned high-speed highways for getting long distances fast. Speeds are often 130 kph or 150 kph and also frequently bumper to bumper. I understand that if you are trying to get somewhere and don't want to be delayed, that this may be the way to go. But not for us.  Now that we are getting deep into California, highways are getting to be much more of the "freeway" variety - four or even six lanes and major thoroughfares. So, it is not always pssible to know how the GPS will interpret "highway". Scenic Highway 101, which runs down the coast of Washington and Oregon offering spectacular views and encourages slow moving motorhomes and vehicles pulling city-block sized trailers, in California turns into a multi-laned racetrack and thus, not worthy of our travel, in the eyes of Garmin. The end result is that it tries to find all the little back roads that will steer us clear of the multi-laned highways, even if it is (intuitively) a far more practical route or right next door. Occasionally, it will guide us down a slip road which runs parallel or adjacent to a highway (or interstate). It would be much more helpful if it could just understand what I understand. 

I set the GPS to guide us to Manchester. In my mind, the logical solution would be to just take us from Arcata back to Highway 101, about 10 km away, which we had used the day before to get to Arcata, then follow the coast down south until it swings inland and then deliver us to HIGHWAY 1 which would take us to Manchester. For the record, HIGHWAY 1 is the tighest, twistiest, gnarliest stretch of switchbacks in the Western U.S. 

Anyway, I failed to anticipate the Garmin had had enough of Highway 101 and off we went on our way to Manchester. As we set out, not far from the motel, Nan comments to me that the road sign says this way to Eureka, which I had expected we would be passing through on the way south. But of course, not according to Garmin. We turned left, while Eureka was right. We ended up riding through a twisty little series of side roads that led us by farms and acreages - very pretty and quite fun in its own right, but at that rate would have taken us a week to get to Manchester. If you are monitoring our route, you will see a little loop at the top of today's trek. (click on the dots to see the time, speed, direction etcetera that we are traveling at that moment). That little loop is Garmin's sense of humour having its way with us. I think it was taking us down Maple Creek Road, which looks super fun from the map but would end up taking directly into the heart of hillbilly country. Or worse.

So I have to confess to Nan that this isn't going according to plan and I have to stop and turn off the "avoidances" on the GPS and insert a waypoint (intermediary destination) to get us on track. To her credit, Nan has been extremely patient with me in this regard because I frequently don't know what I am doing.

Once the parametres of travel are reset, we are back on track and have to go back to Arcata to get onto Highway 101. Hence, the loop. Fortunately, it didn't really take that long and once we were on the highway, travel was fast.

Bombing down Highway 101 is fast but it is four lanes of travel this morning and busy with truck traffic as it is the primary route to San Francisco from these parts. We see a sign pointing to a slip road where we are promised we will learn about the Avenue of Giants, which is pending just a short way south of our location. Avenue of the Giants is the former Highway 101 re-Christened State Highway 254 and runs through Humboldt Redwoods (not squids) State Park. It receives an immediate endorsement from the navigator so when we get to the intersection, we make the appropriate turn. 

Off of four lanes and onto two. Two narrow, twisty lanes that are overgrown with 300 foot high, twenty foot diametre trees, in some cases, where the pavement is right up to the base of the tree and occasionally has to go around. It is stunningly spectacular riding through the forest with these towering behemoths all around us. Sometimes, we see trees that have fallen or were cut down a hundred years ago and it is possible to see their girth from end-on. While we got to see most of the scenic road, sadly, there is road construction happening along the route and we have to return to Highway 101 before we are really ready.  This is one day that I really should have had the GoPro camera set up.

At Legget, we get off 101 and get on 1. I was on Highway 1 last September and it is as gnarly as they come and is a famed road for motorcyclists. In some places, turns are so sharp that I think Nan could reach out and touch the inside cliff walls as we navigate the curves and frequently, we are riding in the opposite direction of the traffic because the turns are literal switch-backs; we just happen to be looking up or looking down on the cars going in the opposite direction. It is quite unnerving, really.

Big Foot appears to be on The Team.

Ed. note: You will notice on the route tracker that there are large gaps between pings this day. This is because the tree cover is so dense that the traking device cannot get a signal through to the satellites.

Back on the coast again, it is pretty much clear sailing down to Manchester State Park and we enjoy incredible vistas of waves crashing expansive beaches. Until we get there. There really isn't much to the campground. It is off the highway a few kilometres and is very Spartan. There are fire pits, pit toilets, and taps every few campspots so easy walking distance. There are a lot of camp sites but only two are occupied: one by the "camp host" a person, usually a senior, who commits to living in their trailer in state parks all summer for free in exchance for looking after a certain number of chores pertaining to keeping the campsite tidy. There is one other camper, I think a guy on his own because within minutes of our having picked a campsite he is over on his bicycle checking out our set up. He tells us that "this used to be his favourite" . We weren't entirely sure if he meant "Site 24" (our spot) or if he meant "Manchester". However, we had arrived into the campground fairly late and we were focused on getting the tent set up in the howling winds.

Before we actually committed, there is a KOA campground adjacent to this campground so we actually go over and take a look. We have never stayed in a KOA but they do have a reputation. They have a little convenience store which proves to be handy and we enquire about the rate. U.S. $67 plus tax per night. And the place is packed. There are a lot of kids running around, too. The attendent tells us there is running water and showers and a pool. I mention that I showered this morning.  We opt for the bare-bones $33 state park campground. Two extremes, at opposite ends of the spectrum. They do nail us for some groceries though: canned stew, canned bean dip, corn chips, and two beers. Twenty bucks. Bon appetite!

We set up our tent with the make-shift pole hack and arrange our payment into the little box while we listen to the first two periods of the hockey game. Once we are all set and have eaten dinner, we crawl into the tent to escape the wind and manage to watch the third period and see the Oilers turn the tables on the Stars in the same fashion that they have been experiencing to this point.

I am only going to post a few pictures tonight because it is late (10:30 pm) and it usually takes about a half hour to upload the photos. We have a short day tomorrow so I'll send them up in the morning.