Day 33: Country Backroads

123.8 km

The day started with a nice breakfast in the kitchen and I took my time before signing the wall and saying goodbye to Anthony and the couple that owned the bike shop. Anthony had decided to take the day off so I got going in solitude at about 10:15. We were both planning we would meet up again down the road since I wanted to make today reasonably short and he was planning on making a long haul after his rest day. After passing through a terrible construction zone, I was out on the country roads again plowing through swarms of grasshoppers. 

The first 30 km was pretty ok riding over gently rolling hills, but after a while I started to get impatient. I reached Cassoday after a total of 60 km and sat down at a gas station to escape the heat and got a cold soda. While I was there, I met four other westbound cyclists who were all going solo but had teamed up along the way and they were all very nice people. I handed out a bunch of cards from the bike shop in Newton that I had got this morning and spoke highly of the experience I had there. 

There had been very little wind yesterday until this afternoon, but now it really started to pick up. The wind was out of the northeast and the route was going south for about 30 km before turning east again, so it was kind of bittersweet to ride fast south knowing I soon would have to fight the wind.

After going slow against the wind for a while I felt I needed to refuel, so I sat down in a ditch by the highway and relaxed and lubed the chain that had been making a slight squeaking noise. The wind seemed to calm down by the time I was done eating and the last 20 km into Eureka went by fairly quick. I went straight for the supermarket to make sure I had breakfast and asked one of the cashiers for directions to the park. The very friendly and helpful staff even called the sheriff for me to make sure it was ok to stay in the park. On the way to the city park, I stopped by a pizza restaurant for dinner. 

At the park I met a group of four girls that had recently graduated college, and were riding from Washington, D.C to San Francisco. After taking a shower, I joined them at their table and we spent the evening chatting and sharing stories from the road. We were also accompanied by Steve from yesterday and we all spent the night in the park.