We woke up to rain again, and decided to skip a convenience store breakfast, and rode our bikes downhill about 2 miles into Eureka central. There was a cafe there called Jax that had good reviews on Google. This would be Andy’s first American breakfast experience, so we wanted it to be a good one. This definitely was a good place for that. I firmly believe that the breakfast is the best American meal.
We both ordered a large plate since we would have 20+ miles of uphill right after leaving town, and there really wasn’t much ahead in terms of amenities. As most authentic rural breakfast places, this one also had a “good ole boy” table right in the middle. I didn’t pay much attention to what was being said, but did notice that they were eating the same breakfast entrees as us. I was tempted to ask how far they are planning to ride but thought better of that 😁.
We left the cafe fully loaded which was probably not the best idea when cycling uphill right away. Your stomach is battling with your legs for blood flow. Which ends up leaving you winded until you have digested most of it. That probably didn’t happen for me until halfway up.
We were going through some beautiful areas with nobody around. Then suddenly we met this woman walking her dog along the road, so we stopped and chatted for a while. Andy used to work for a safari outfit in Botswana, and apparently she and her husband planned to travel there with the same company. What a small world!
We finally made it to the top of the climb, when we saw another bikepacker doing some repairs on the side of the road. Apparently his front tire was slashed by a sharp rock, and he was running a tubeless setup like we were. We helped him put a patch on the inside of the tire and put in an inner tube until he got a chance to replace the tire in a town further down the route. It was cold on the top of that pass, and I was shivering because my clothes were wet from sweat. This guy was super minimalistic with a gravel bike with relatively small tires, and just a thin wind jacket. Both Andy and I were shaking our heads.
We had to make a decision on where to stay tonight, since Andy’s knee was acting up and he really didn’t want to do another long climb to get to the next campground. We saw a small little town (community) about 5 miles off the route called Polebridge that had camping and a hostel, so we picked that as our location for the night. We opted for the hostel which was really a neat place run by an elderly German guy who had lived there year round for over 24 years. The place was completely off grid with Solar, etc. I recalled liked the vibe of that community and would like to bring Linda and Blue back there one day. Not on a bicycle this time.
In the end we still managed to go 57 miles that day, so not bad.
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