Biking the Pacific Coast: Half-way

We have made it into Calif. We are about 120 miles into Calif; Fernbridge is what we think is half-way. Yesterday we rode through a part of the Redwood National Forest, it was awe inspiring. Gigantic trees all around us; massive stumps of trees that were cut decades ago inspired a spiritual sense in me. As we came out into a clearing, a small herd of elk were feeding. We stayed at a campground within a redwood grove. Luke found a slug six inches long on his bike seat when we got up, it is called a banana slug, it had a very yellow color.

My last post I ended saying that I would talk about topography. Since I have come to realize that this ride is much more hilly than the ride across America. Of course, the mountains in the northern Cascades and the continental divide were Big, the prairies came next and they were quite flat and seemed endless. Here the hills seem endless. Yesterday we rode 58 miles, but I think we probably climbed 4000 feet combined. This means there were a couple of hours of peddling at 5-6 miles per hour. I guess that is all I will say about topography.

Just after the peddle through redwoods, we crossed a bridge where numerous people were gathered gazing over the side. There was a grey whale swimming back and forth under the bridge. One of the locals showed me (this is Ronnie) several newspaper articles about the whale. She said that the whale had been around about 5 weeks. Originally it was with it's baby. After several attempts to get the whales to return to the sea, the baby headed to open waters. For some reason, the mother whale stayed. The local lady also said that the baby had beached at least once so there was speculation that s/he was not well. Tugs at your heart. There was a man in a boat playing the flute when Jerry, Luke and Amy went through. So for now the big grey is entertaining hundreds of onlookers. I don't know if there are stories on the Internet covering this, but it was in Klamath, California on the Klamath River.