Day Three – An Order of Sunshine with a Side of Wind

Knowing that we have fewer miles to ride in a day is not serving us well. We slept in until 8:30 this morning, missed the hotel breakfast and didn’t hit the road until 10:30. We’re getting lazy. Tomorrow we will be more disciplined.

It was a beautiful clear day. At the coast, that means it is usually windy and, it was.

We stayed on Hwy 101 the entire day. It’s a good road but it is freeway most of the way and the view doesn’t change much; from beautiful coast to beautiful redwoods.

We stopped outside of Brookings, Oregon for a rest and to shed some layers. The temperature was 82 and we were too bundled. Apparently, Brookings is a microclimate because as soon as we got north of there, we wished we still had our liners on. Burrr!

There were several river crossings along this stretch of 101. The Smith, the Winchuck, the Chetco the Pistol and finally the Rogue.

We made it to Gold Beach and had lunch. We walked along the pier and watched the pelicans fish and a sea lion play. We relaxed before heading back down to Crescent City.

When we got back to Crescent City, we unloaded the bike and went into town for some refreshments since we’d had a late lunch. After purchasing our dinner, we went to visit the Battery Point Lighthouse.

We got lucky because it was a receding tide and we were able to walk to it. It is not accessible much of the time. It’s still a working lighthouse with a resident keeper.

When we returned to the hotel, we changed clothes and walked down to the harbor. We enjoyed some barking sea lions, an expect sea gull fight and a beautiful sunset.

Tomorrow we head south to Point Arena. We’re going to try the Newton B. Drury Scenic Byway which parallels 101 and we will check out Prairie Creek State Park on a recommendation from our friend Bryan.

We did find one barn today: