Aneel's trip report.
Date:
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 20:25:34 -0700
Subject: Progress Report
I'm in another one of those cell phone dead spots
where I can get phone
service, but no data.
Well, I'm not going to make it to SF tonight. They
were in the process
of closing 101 just as I got to the Benbow exit.
Apparently a multi-semi
accident has closed the highway for the next five or
six hours.
Probably for the best. I was pretty exhausted anyway,
and I had 200mi to
go before SF. Note to self: don't start a long day's
ride with a
difficult section. In fact, if you're going to try to
do more than 400mi
in a day, don't include the difficult section at all.
I left Weed going north on 5, looking for the old
Highway 99. I missed
the first turnoff (I suspect they don't bother
labelling the exit as
leading to 99, since 5 is its replacement). I had to
stop and ask
directions in Grenada.
99, the Gazelle-Callahan Road, and CA-3 were all good
roads to bike
(except for the section they're repaving on 3), but it
would have been a
lot more pleasant on a cooler day. The route crosses
the Klamath
Mountains, so it's practically all switchbacks and
curves. Fun riding,
but not fast enough to raise the breeze I needed to
cool down.
I had lunch at a nice restaurant in Weaverville, which
seemed like a
pleasant, affluent town. The local Rotary club was
having their meeting
in the other room of the restaurant. I hadn't imagined
that clubs like
that still had such big memberships.
After lunch, I headed down to CA-36. That's perhaps my
least favorite
road so far this trip, mostly because of one 5mi
section. It was a
rough, curvy road about a car and a half wide, with no
line down the
middle. I'm sure the locals know every curve
intimately, since they seem
to love whipping their pickups around every turn.
I was relieved to finally hit 101, but pretty tired. I
stopped for a bad
dinner in Rio Dell, and rested a while. Made it about
30mi south before
I ran into the traffic snag. So I'm in the cheapest
motel in Redway.
Miles: 310.4
Hours: 7
-- aneel's phone