Hills, hills, hills!

Eureka, CA to Benbow, CA (miles: 72 calories: 1907)
After our half rest day we were back on the bikes!  It was a wet and chilly start.  An impromptu detour in the morning led us up a steep and winding country road.  After refueling and warming up at Starbucks in Fortuna we continued biking going down the beautiful Avenue of the Giants.  As the day warmed up it was nice to be in the shade of the giant trees.
All along the way there are many touristy stops, one of which was the Shrine Drive Thru Tree Auto park.  You pay $3 a piece to go in and take your picture in the center of this (now dead) redwood tree that was being held up by cables!  This place also had a drive-on trunk (essentially a large stump they converted into a ramp you can drive onto), a children's walk through stump, and two tree houses made out of redwood trunks.  We also passed the "Famous One Log House".

The Drive (or bike) Thru Tree!

Famous One-Log House!

That night we stayed at Benbow State Park.  It was located right next to a nice creek to take a dip in!  That night Lucas and I spotted some curious holes in the ground near our tent... Around one of them was a spider's web.  When we peeked in we could see the two large front legs of a spider! We moved our tent.
Amy

Spider hole!

Benbow, CA to Cleone, CA (miles: 62  calories: 1554)

It was a sunny, warm start today!  After about 20 miles of small hills we hit a big hill just outside of Leggett (over 1000 feet!).  After a nice long down hill we climbed another 500 foot hill!  Phew!  The afternoon was full of lots of rolling hills along the coast.

We ended the day at a state park just north of Fort Bragg.  Our campsite was surrounded by blackberry bushes!  This morning I had blackberry pancakes and Lucas made delicious blackberry syrup!
Amy

The chef

Blackberry Pancakes