Instead of driving directly up 101 from Ukiah, I instead cut out to the coast and came up the 1, through the Redwood forests and along the Pacific coast. Once the 1 cut back in and connected back with 101, I checked out a drive-thru tree, which was pretty cool. Yes, my car fit through, but I had to go quite slowly in order to not scrape my mirrors.
I also took the Avenue of the Giants along the entire stretch of it rather than staying on 101, which took me through a lot of redwood forests. So so pretty. Tonight I'm staying in a little motel up near Redwood National Forest, which I'll visit tomorrow. I'm looking forward to getting out and hiking. I feel like my body needs the physical exercise. I almost considered doing some yoga tonight.
A couple other observations from today:
1. I have apparently stumbled upon a motorcycle convention in the area. They are everywhere. I know that the Sturgis festival isn't until August, so I'm not sure what's going on in this area, but goodness gracious.
2. People that are driving and don't realize that they are going slower than the line of cars behind them want them to go are completely annoying. Here, where most of the roads don't have passing lanes, it's pretty universally understood that if someone is getting close to you behind you, you should pull over into the next turnout in order to let them pass. Occasionally, someone doesn't understand this and the entire line of vehicles behind them has to suffer. GRRRRRR. There's also the reverse that I experienced today with a guy that came up on my tail so quickly and couldn't wait until I hit the next turnout to let him pass. He rode my tail with his light (just one, as his was a motorcycle) glaring in my mirror and the passed me just before I was coming up on a turnout where I could pull over to let him pass. Jackass.
3. The TV in my hotel room had a ton of extraneous, non-working channels programmed onto it, so, of course, I spent an hour deleting them.
4. While it's been nice to use airbnb the past leg of this trip, I'm excited to have a couple of nights to myself. It's good to have time to decompress alone and not have to be a guest in someone's home.
5. The Tonys are tomorrow night. I don't think I'll have TV where I'm staying tomorrow night, so I've been trying to figure out if they're being streamed. You know what's not helpful? A website that only gives information about how LAST YEAR's Tonys were scheduled to be streamed. Grrrrr...
Ok, I think that's it for my grievances for the evening. :-)
We were through Lake Placid day before yesterday, in the pouring rain remnants of Hurricane whatever-A-name-they-chose. Torrential! Zillions of very wet motorcyclists here too on every road, and many hotels had "bikers welcome" signs. Maybe it's a nationwide phenomenon? A cross-country two- (or three-) wheel renaissance?
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