Home tomorrow!

We are spending the night tonight at Half Moon Bay State Park knowing that this is the last night for sleeping in the tent, not having a warm shower, and cooking a well balanced meal from one pot!

The last few days have really helped us define this trip as an adventure. Despite a day of rest last weekend, my Achilles tendons, yes both now, were getting much worse. We made the decision that no vacation was ment to leave one of it's travelers wounded or seriously injured, so we looked into other ways to knock out some miles. As much as Scott would have enjoyed hitch hiking, we settled on renting a one way car to get on our way. The adventure part comes in when we realized that we couldn't rent a car out of Eureka without bringing it back to Eureka. There is one thing we could rent though... Can you guess? A U-Haul! Yes, we drove a 14 foot U-Haul from Eureka to San Rafael over the last few days with nothing but our bikes and gear in it. We sctually left the tent pitched and just pulled it out for a night of sleep! Thankfuly we got back on route today though.

Our drive was much faster than if we were pedaling, but really due to the giantness of the vehicle we went about the same speed. We did stick to the bike route which was great. We drove the Avenue of the Giants and saw amazing Redwoods. We drove the 50 extra miles of the Lost Coast which we wouldn't have time for on bikes, and we drove on HWY 1 from where it begins in Leggett! We had 2 fun nights of camping, last night 2 dudes shared their dinner, fire and camp chairs with us because they thought the U Haul story was just that funny! (and they felt bad that we were going to have a can of soup for dinner).

Today felt great to be back on the bikes. My Achilles still hurt, but having the days of rest really helped. We met my friend and former UC Davis Professor, Paul, in San Anselmo and he was our support vehicle for the day! We ditched the bags in his car and really enjoyed the day through Sausalito where we stopped for our first Mexican food in two weeks and had a great trip over the Golden Gate Bridge :) (video to follow soon). From there it was through Daly City and then back on HWY 1 to Half Moon Bay! Almost 60 miles of riding seemed like nothing, but with visions of an electric toothbrush and a pillow tomorrow's 50 miles may seem long! Paul is here camping with us tonight and will ride us in tomorrow. Along for the ride tomorrow will also be my friend Terri who is going to ride from Aptos and meet us along the route to ride home with us! Yaaaay friends :)

Visions of our home are sure to dance in our heads tonight!