We were off this morning fairly early from the Red Lion hotel.  We had a good night’s rest and those football players were as quiet as mice.  Maybe if they win today they will be rowdy tonight.  Good thing we were not sticking around to find out!

Halfway through Eureka downtown proper Jeremy had a eureka moment!  I am probably not using that saying properly but I had to use it somewhere.  Jeremy realized he still had our hotel key cards in his pocket, so we saw downtown Eureka three times today.  And Koira got to bark at people on the street too a little more than usual.

Although the day started out promising in terms of the weather, it was not long before we hit the drizzle of the coast again.  We drove through beautiful redwood groves, spotted our second children’s swimming pool on the road (this time a plastic Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle pool with built-in slide safely resting on the northbound side of the highway), and stopped at a gas station with no gasoline but fantastic brownies and espresso – The Peg House.  We found premium gasoline in Legget, just down the road at the crossroads between Highway 101 and Highway 1.  Good thing, because the Honda was getting pretty low!

After filling up, Jeremy turned on his helmet cam to film Highway 1 for a little while.  It was just as amazing as we remembered from two years ago.  A little different, though, because we are going North to South this time instead of South to North.  The views of the ocean when we came out of the trees was amazing from this direction.

We were able to do the first stretch of Highway 1 from Legget to Fort Bragg on fairly dry roads, but the drizzle turned to actual rain just outside Fort Bragg.  We stopped at a busy beach access parking lot and donned the rain gear yet again.  We were not the only motorcyclists in the parking lot trying to put on rain gear as quick as possible.  Jeremy forgot to turn of his helmet cam so we have a recording of that too.  It is always easier to start out in rain gear if you know it is going to rain.  Putting it on while it is raining when you already have all your other gear on is challenging, if not down right annoying.

After we got the rain gear on and headed out, the rain eased up, of course, but it hit us again later, so we were ready for it.  Even with the rain, Highway 1 is amazing.  We have not found anything to top it anywhere else in Canada or the United States.  The switchbacks are challenging but the views are just stunning.  We kept imagining Koira having to do handstands (pawstands?) in her Pet Palace for some of those 15 MPH and 10 MPH hairpins but, at our rest stops, she seemed relaxed and just ready to explore.  What an adaptable dog!

We pushed on through the rain, the moving trucks, the bravest bicyclists in the world, and the slowest minivan EVER with Alberta plates (for shame, Mr. Albertan, for shame), until we reached Bodega Bay.  A well known “birding” area, the town of Bodega was made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.  We did a little loop through Bodega in an attempt to find a hotel but it is very, very small.  We headed back through Bodega Bay and pulled into the Bodega Coast Inn parking lot.  They were very pricey but it was a Saturday night and I did not know how much farther I could go, so we decided to take their last available room.  Bodega Bay is close enough to the Sonoma wine region that the hotel rates would probably not be much better anywhere else nearby anyway.  Even Koira cost us an extra $30 per night and she was not even allowed in the lobby.  Oh, well.  The room is quiet and has a nice little balcony overlooking Bodega Bay and all the birds.  Lots and lots of birds.

To date, unless Jeremy is in the picture, Jeremy has been the photographer and I the writer on this trip.  I tried taking some nighttime pictures of the bay and the lights.  I think that I should stick to the writing and let Jeremy take the pictures.  I guess I moved the camera . . . you can check out my “renditions” of the harbour at night.

Just as an aside to today’s adventure, I have to take time to reflect on those brave bicyclists on Highway 1 again.  We remember them from last time too.  It is pretty unnerving coming around a hairpin turn and seeing a bicyclist.  Driving Highway 1 on a loaded “three-up” motorcycle in the rain may be daring, but not as daring as every single bicyclist we met on the road today.  And to all the very, very brave and daring bicyclists we met on the road today, Jeremy came up with a haiku in your honour:

Why, why, why, why, why
Why, why, why, why, why, why, why
Why, why, bicycle?