85k. +655m climbing

Left Fortuna in the rain,but the day cleared up to a sunny (bloody hot) 34 degrees. We ended up riding into Garberville fairly late because we took our time through Avenue of Giants- a longish chat over lunch with 3 lovely American women who are cycling border to border, and then we stopped at a picnic area near the (very low) river and well, you couldn’t say ‘swam.. we immersed ourselves in knee deep water. It was a bit of an effort getting the panniers off and walking over river rocks, but it was good to get away from people and cars. A few people wandered past while we were there but didn’t stay, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Major highlight of the morning was getting a good coffee! 10k in, at Rio Dell. Hot Shotz. They had small cups which made just the right strength,so I picked her brains about how many shots per what size cup. I may finally manage to figure out it our before I leave.
So Garberville is the stoner capital of the US. Pretty dodgy. Even had a guy lift the lid on our washing machine in the laundromat while I was standing just outside the door waiting for it to finish. And apparently some people did a runner from the Chinese restaurant  we had dinner at, leading the owner to yell at her son-in-law till he walked out. As we left they let a guy go round scraping all the leftovers on the plates that hadn’t been cleared (lots – they were understaffed)’including ours.

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