Skiergirl: Redwood National Park to Eureka!

What a day. Today was, by-far, the toughest and best day yet. First things first, I like wilderness, I think it's wonderful, but I don't like it when it's on my tent. My very beautiful, very rustic campsite reared it's ugly head as a slept last night and I woke up to not one, not two, but three surprises. Surprise one: some flying creature unloaded it's bowels on my tent. There was a lovely two-tone green and white splash down one side of the fly. This made me a little unhappy as I did not look forward to cleaning it up. Surprise two: I had my first encounter with a banana slug. It was creeping along the inside of the fly at the foot of my tent, in plain view through the screen. It was very interesting to watch, and I decided he was my friend, albeit a disgusting one. Surprise three: A small mammal had unloaded it's bowels on my picnic table. Talking to the rangers later, apparently it was a raccoon, and they do it all the time. Word has it they like to poop on the little white plaque in the middle of the tables. Lovely! I was planning on staying there for two nights, but that plan changed.

As part of the new plan, I packed up and drove the beautiful Howland Hill Road, which cuts through Jedediah Smith State Park. The Redwoods were absolutely amazing. There is no way for me to describe them fully, but here are a few words that come to mind: stunning, majestic, tranquil, daunting, stoic. Cheesy I'm sure, and my words could never do them justice, so I'll stop there. I also had a hard time catching them in photos, but I got a few keepers.

Along the drive, I decided to do an impromptu hike along a trail my book recommended. The trail wound through huge groves of Redwoods, up over hills and down into moist valleys, over moss-covered bridges and eventually to a beautiful waterfall. The hike was longer than I had anticipated and I figured I'd speed up the process and get in a little run, so I decided to run back. Well, that was a bad idea. I made it about a third of the way when I stumbled over a root and fell flat on my stomach. I scraped both knees and elbows, with one elbow taking the worst of it. After that, I thought maybe a slow walk would be a better plan. I looked around at the 1000-year-old trees and wondered what the heck my hurry was.

I got back to the car, had some lunch, and headed off to the next adventure for the day. My neighbour from Lincoln City told me about a trail in the park that you could mountain bike on so I made my way there. I hopped on and made my way along some decent single track through the giant trees. It was definitely the most beautiful place I had ever ridden. It had a pretty sweet downhill on the way in, which I had rightly anticipated would be a real bitch on the way back out. Just before I reached the beach I came across an older couple walking and stopped to talk to them for a bit. They were camping nearby and invited me to stop by for a glass of wine on the way back. I continued on to the beach and watched the waves for a while before making my way back. This time, on the path were two gigantic elk, who did not look overly happy to see me. They were in the way of where I was going, and I was in their way. We kinda felt each other out for a while, but eventually they moved a little further down the clearing and I was able to get by. It was a little scary, but I think I handled myself well.

I'm not one to make friends with strangers very easily but I want to get out of my shell a bit, so I took the couple up on their offer for a glass of wine. I'm so glad I did! They were the most wonderful people! We sat and talked for well over an hour and finished off the bottle of wine. They were so lovely, have been married for 35 years and are so obviously still completely in smitten with each other. They shared insights for life and gave me wonderful advice. I felt a little sad leaving, knowing I would never see them again. But I'm so glad that they happened to be a little blip in my life that I'll never forget.

The ride out was horrible, uphill forever, with two glasses of wine in my belly and head. But I slogged through and made it. The final disaster for the day was when I was attempting to put my bike back on the roof rack. Bikes can be very heavy when you are exhausted, hungry and slightly tipsy. It's really hard to get the bike arranged up there in the first place and it went very wrong this time. My feet slipped (since I'm so short I have to stand on the door frame to do it) and I feel backward, dropping the bike on my legs, twisting my ankle, and falling on my butt. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt that bad... but I think I may have done some damage to my deraileur. I've been too afraid to look.

After that, all I wanted to do was go to bed. I raced for Eureka! (which I will always spell with an "!") and checked into the local KOA. I had a lovely shower, talked to my neighbour (whom I'm having coffee with in the morning) and wrote this... Pictures will follow... computer dying.