Day 13- July 4

Day 13: July 4th 31,547 miles on the odometer

We eat a hot breakfast at the hotel and are back on the road at 11:00. Not an early start by any means, but still better than we’ve been doing lately.
Hwy. 299 to the coast is a good road. The pavement is a little rough in spots but not terrible, and there are lots of ups, downs, and esses. Traffic is light, mostly fire crews working active wildfires in the area. The smoke isn’t thick enough to obscure the scenery though. We pull of for a snack about 80 miles in. It’s a nice little picnic area alongside the Trinity River, and we have a good view of a spotter plane and a water bomber making his runs at some of the dozens of fires burning here. We pass quite a few camps, trucks, and helicopters all here to fight the fires.
Fortunately, nothing is so close to the road that forces closure, and today’s ride is a huge improvement over yesterday. It is even a bit chilly as we get to the coast. I’m thinking it would be more comfortable if I put the riding pants back on. We can’t see much of the Pacific Ocean as the cool air coming in brings a pretty thick fog. Good for the redwood trees, not so good for sight seeing.
Redwood National Park is not so nice as Yosemite, but it is still pretty good. I don’t feel a need to camp here, but it is a great spot for a day trip. The roads are great. The trees filter the fog so you can see where you’re going, and they are curvy and scenic enough to keep your interest. We make a stop at one of the visitor centers and get our stamp and a brochure/map.
We also stop a few times to take some pictures and take some short hikes. The redwoods aren’t as massive as the sequoias we missed, but they are tall. Very tall. Ceci takes one picture of me standing at the base of one of the trees at the side of the road. You can almost see the top of the tree in the photo. I’m nothing but a blurry red dot at the base. Impressive.
As it starts to get late, we head up to the Oregon coast and get the last available campsite at Harris Beach State Park. Lucky us. We still can’t see the beach through the fog. It’s so thick we can’t even see any fireworks. We eat dinner at a restaurant in town, but I get a campfire going anyway to take a bit of the damp chill out of the air. Ceci’s sinuses are not enjoying the weather, so neither is she.
Her bike is not enjoying things either. It seems to be running a little rich and is popping off throttle. I also notice the saddle bags are starting to sag towards the exhaust pipes again. I’ll have some work to do in the morning. Hopefully we’ll be able to spend some time on the beach in the morning as well. Tonight we hit the sack early. We only manage to go 234 miles, but the sightseeing was worth it.