Day 36 - Nickel Creek to Elk Meadow

Day 36 – (June 9) Nickel Creek Campground to Elk Meadow Campground

In the morning, I made eggs, contemplated life and took a picture of my campsite:

It's all exploded from making breakfast

Then I called Revolution Bicycles in Arcata.  I explained the situation, described my cranks and had them determine what crank bolt I'd likely need.  I called Sharon, told her which shop and that they'd be expecting her.

I sat back, packed up my site some and eventually I went out to the road with the bike to wait for Sharon.  She arrived noonish with 2 crank nuts - apparently Revolution had only had one, and directed her to another local shop for a second one.  She also (at my request) brought me a one gallon bottle of water - which was the hardest thing to find - she couldn't get it in Arcata, but had to go back out into the less green environs to find packaged water.  If she hadn't been available, I would have had to camp out until Monday, walk the 7 miles to the Crescent City bike store and by that time, would have been pissy for at least hours, if not days.  Thanks mom, you're a lifesaver.

I reassembled the crank:

The offending crank, sans crank nut

I then filled my hydration bag (3L) drank the rest of the water (keeping the jug), and went back to the campsite. I finished packing and schlepped the stuff up to the bike (which I left at the trail, rather than bring downhill to the campsite again.  While my stuff is slowly loading smaller, just schlepping the bags out of my campsite was hard.

Leaving the campsite, I rode back to the road, then back to 101, and started towards Klamath.  Partway up the big hill before Klamath, I ran cross a group of girls trying to take a self portrait at the Redwood National and State park sign.  I offered to take a few pictures of them so that they didn't have to do the set timer & run thing.  Afterwards, I had them take a picture of me at the sign:

All the exertion makes me cherry red - I'm actually not sunburned (yet)

I managed to get over the big hill to Klamath – 1200 feet to the top:

The top of the climb

After an hour plus to go up the hill, it took only a few minutes to cruise down into Klamath, past the tourist trap on the way in:

"Trees of Mystery" advertised for at least 150 miles - what a pile!

Across the highway from the tourist trap, someone had posted a sticker that I loved:

Imagine Samuel L. Jackson's voice while you read this

I get to Klamath, and there's NOTHING in Klamath…I could only buy food at the combination gas station, mini mart & slot casino.  I bought lime & onion – no eggs.

I did see a very interesting memorial on the road in Klamath:

 Near the memorial were a couple of bears:

On the east side of the street

On the west side of the street

And the only thing that I could find solely to the memory of the flood of 1964:

There's nothing at the spot, just the sign leading to it

I then left Klamath and rode over the 2^nd hill into the park where I was planning to camp. I got into the campground about 8:30.  I set up camp, took shower, made food, overprimed alcohol stove & set the picnic table on fire.

Then I ate and went to bed (mat?).