Day 44 Arcata to Fortuna: meeting more amazing people

August 16, 2017

We woke early after having a surprisingly good sleep. As I mentioned yesterday, the motel was a little (that’s being nice) run down and we were expecting noisy student partying to go on into the night. Instead, we heard some chatting and then it went quiet, so we managed to sleep – hurray!

After a quick breakfast of muffins and bananas, we took off for Eureka, a short 8 miles away. The road was flat, the traffic light and the shoulder immense. In other words, we flew down the highway, stopping only once to take pictures of the very interesting trees that line the highway here.

very interesting pattern on the bark of these trees. Don't know what they are though

Once we arrived in Eureka, we took the first of the detours we had planned for this day. We had heard that this town had some great old houses to see.

so, this very old house had a drive through at the front - why would that be?

a lot of interesting older architecture in Eureka

We wanted to see the historical Carson Mansion and wow!!! It was amazing!!! While we gawked, a gentleman came out and chatted with us about the history of this immense home. It was the home of a lumber baron and was built for this wife and two children – can you imagine? You could house an army in this place! Today it is owned by a private club and used for functions. Their fees cover the cost of maintaining this gigantic structure and I can only imagine how much that would take – even just to keep the paint up!

The Carlson Manner - wow! This place is really, really amazing!

We also heard that the little pink house across the street was build by the same person as a wedding gift to his son – oh boy, to have that kind of money! Pretty interesting homes though, and we really enjoyed seeing them.

the little pink house was built for the son when he got married. Right across the street from dad - I bet the daughter-in-law was thrilled!

After our little tour, we found a funky street in the old town area to have coffee. Same place as yesterday, Los Bagels, different town. We enjoyed sitting outside with our bagels and coffee before heading off to the waterfront to catch up with the bike trail there.

downtown Eureka - looks like a cool place to hang out

The bike trail in Eureka is a work in progress and we really enjoyed cycling along the waterfront on a separate bikeway. It took us all the way out of town, thus avoiding the 101 for quite some time.

waterfront area of Eureka. They have a really nice boardwalk along here

We had a good tailwind, wide shoulders and fairly flat roads to ride on, so even though the traffic had picked up, we didn’t mind so very much being on the 101. We were able to make good time once again until the turnoff to our next detour which would take us to the tiny town of Lolita. Up a hill we went, but there was no complaining (well, not much anyways) as we knew that we would have been slogging up the same hill on the 101, just with more traffic. Here it was quiet and serene as we made our way up. Once we reached the top, we saw more farmland with lots of horses, which made me think of our granddaughter, Hanna, who loves to ride. We rode along this lovely back country road until we reached the town.

the very small town of Lolita, complete with a post office for us to mail postcards from!

Stopping at the post office there, we mailed off a postcard to Hanna and asked one of the locals there where we could find the Lolita Cheese Factory, which was the main attraction for this detour. He told us it was just up the street and mentioned that they had a lovely garden out back. Well, this sounded interesting indeed, so off we went.

The Lolita Cheese Factory is a small operation from the looks of it, but very well known in this area of California. We went in and discovered that as well as selling all kinds of cheeses, they had a little café and indeed, a lovely little garden to sit in. There was a gate out back and so we were able to bring the bikes into the garden. Since it was such a lovely spot and just about lunch time, we ordered sandwiches and sat outside to soak up some much needed sunshine.

Lolita Cheese Factory - great place, great cheese, great people!

While I was inside picking up our lunch, Jim met a man coming from the area that said “no entrance, employees only”. After saying hello, Jim asked him if he owned the place and Bob replied, yes he did. As I came back, Jim was saying “Oh, so you’re the big cheese” and Bob laughingly replied that he was indeed. He then told us how he came to be in the cheese business and some very interesting stories about people he had met along the way. We had such a lovely, lovely chat with Bob and in the end, he gave us his email and phone number, saying if we ran into any problems while in the area, just give him a call. What an amazingly nice person – thanks so much, Bob! Oh, and the sandwiches were delicious!!!

this little gnome was wanting to share our lunch

We left Lolita and headed off to our last detour of the day, the town of Ferndale, where apparently the entire town is of early Victorian style architecture.

On the way past many farms, we noticed that they all had what looked like a quilt square on the top of the barn. Not sure if this is some local custom or not, but I made Jim stop and take a picture of this one – looks familiar somehow!

barns all had a square on them - each one different, but they looked like quilt squares. This one caught my eye

Our ride to Ferndale was only another 7.5 miles, but we ran into a severe headwind, so were pretty pooped when we arrived. Hot and tired, we stopped and there we met two girls who had been at Patrick’s Point and Elk Prairie with us! They are from Germany and like us, are in no hurry to finish their tour. They told us of a store that had great ice cream and so we wished them well and went in search of refreshments. We wouldn’t be surprised if we meet up with them again in a few days when we stop at the Redwoods.

Satisfied, Jim took the camera and went off to take pictures while I relaxed – thanks, sweetie!

even the restrooms in Ferndale are done up!!!

As we were leaving town, a woman who was walking her dogs stopped to ask us where we were from in Canada. It turned out she was originally from Edmonton, Alberta, but had been living in the states for the past 30 years for work. We chatted about how different life was down in the states than in Canada and she mentioned that when she retires in a few years, she wants to come back to Canada – not to Alberta though! Winters are too cold there!

We had been commenting to each other about what a nice day we had been having. Usually, our days are filled with both good and bad, but today had really been only good. I joked that I was waiting for the shoe to drop – probably should have kept my mouth shut!

We rolled into the town of Fortuna and found the RV Campground where we had booked a site. The entrance looked great and they had a little store, a pool, showers and even a kitchen in the camping area. Glamping! We pulled up to our assigned camp spot and none of the people camping beside us where there. We set up the tent and were just relaxing in our chairs when one family arrived back. The kids came careening out of the van and it was total chaos. One kid knocked my bike over and didn’t even stop to say sorry. I looked over to see both parents madly lighting up their cigarettes – ugh! This was going to be a long night! Another family close by showed up and the little kids started running around screaming at each other. Well, so much for using the kitchen and eating dinner at the campsite. Longing for the quiet of a good hiker/biker site, we quickly showered and walked to the brew pub nearby to slowly eat our dinner and sip on a couple of very nice beers.

Walking back, it was getting very chilly, so we hid in our tent and played cards for a short time until it got dark. Getting ready for bed, we could only hope that these parents would be able to get their little darlings to sleep so that we could sleep. We’ll see..

Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 1,593 km (989 miles)

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