Day 76

This morning I went for a 40 minute run through Grant's Pass which could more accurately be called Bear Town USA. There are statues of bears in all shapes and sizes throughout the center of town.

People began passing through Grant's Pass in the 1820s and it was eventually settled in the late 1840s. The city was named after General US Grant's success at Vicksburg. Today the city's population is over 30,000 and it is one of the fastest growing cities in Oregon.

We had breakie in the motel, packed up and set off for Redwood National Forest down 199S.

Along the way, we called into the tourist info center to pick up some maps and drove along Howland Hill Road through Jedediah Smith Redwoods Park. The road was tiny and very narrow in parts but the views were absolutely amazing.











In 1850 Redwood Forest covered over two million acres of land. The northern most part was originally inhabited by Native Americans. But during the gold rush many eager miners traveled to the region. When most of them could not strike it rich with gold, they turned to harvesting the giant trees and enjoyed several decades of unobstructed tree logging. Beginning in the 1920s several small parks were created in an attempt to preserve the remaining trees and in 1968 the
Redwood National Park was created. Unfortunately, nearly 90% of the original redwood trees had been cut down by that time. Today the parks cover more than 130,000 acres of land and protect 45% of the remaining Coastal Redwood trees. These trees are the tallest and one of the most massive tree species on the entire planet.

Eventually, we emerged back on 101 and went north a few miles to Crescent City. We stopped and had lunch in a nice little cafe called Harvest Grove.

Then we continued south on 101 into Klamath and stopped for a look at the Trees Of Mystery. As tempting as it was, we decided not to do the tour as we weren't really bothered but we did have a look around and checked out the gimp shop.

Trees Of Mystery is an attraction located in the Redwood Forest that has a one mile trail through the trees. Much of the trail is devoted to the myth of Paul Bunyan and can either be walked or seen from above in a lift called the Sky Trail. At the entrance to the attraction are giant statues of both Paul Bunyan and his faithful blue ox Babe. The statue of Paul is nearly fifty feet tall and weighs 30,000 pounds!





After the awe inspiring fifteen minutes looking at Paul and the gimp shop, we fueled up the car and then stopped for a game of golf in a nearby RV park. It was an absolute disaster for me. My head has been all over the place for the last few days and I totally cracked on the course. I missed putts all day long and despite two holes in one I just couldn't get it together. I made a charge on the back nine with a roll of twos but Paulo matched every one of them. In fairness, he could do no wrong today - he shot well and I ended up falling back five strokes. He now leads the competition by seven strokes and I think I may have lost the trophy today.

We got back on to 101 and took the Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway through Prarie Creek Redwoods State Park. Along the way we stopped to look at some more trees and even spotted some elks crossing a path.





While we were there, Paulo tried to figure out how he was going to get a proper picture of the massive trees with his compact little camera...



We rolled into Eureka around 6:00 without any coupons for a hotel. We parked up in a Travel Lodge to get a rogue wifi signal and I found a few places that took coupons. After talking to several of the places, nobody was willing to give us a discount and we had to settle for an America's Best Value Inn. It was bitter really. But what can you do? We got a nice room in the end in the middle of town so it was all good.

We walked down the street to Lost Coast Brewery for a bite to eat and a beer. I had a really good burger and a couple of 8 Ball Stouts which really hit the spot. Paulo struggled to find a beer he liked - no to the Pale Ale, no to the Guinness ('muck!' he shouted with a twisted face) and no to the Lager. It was a cool spot though and we enjoyed some chats and watching all of the peeps rolling in.

As we were making our way back to the motel, I spied with my little ear some AC DC playing across the street in a pool hall. Well, we had to go have a look didn't we? It was a place called Ragg's and there was nahbody there. We got a beer (more 8 Ball for me) and settled into some pool at a table near the jukebox. Quality tunes - rock & roll all nite. Unfortunately, I played pool as well as I played golf earlier so Paulo kicked my arse. In fact, you could call the day 'Paulo's kicking of Dave's arse' day. He beat me in pool (about 5 or 6 games) and then he beat me in video golf as well just for good measure.

I hung my head in shame (or perhaps slight drunkenness) as we walked back to the hotel. Once there we hit the scratcher straight away - there's a lot of driving tomorrow to get to San Francisco.

Day 75

I woke up early today and went to the shops to get some provisions. We legged it out of the hotel and drove to the meeting point for the rafting trip, which was about half way between Roseberg and Crater Lake.

We arrived just before 10:00 for the briefing and to meet all the peeps. The guides were the standard fare - twenty something stoners who looked like they hadn't had a shower in a few days. But they were all very nice and really enthusiastic. These moments are always tense because you worry about which guide you are going to get and who else you will be sharing the raft with. One of the dudes looked a bit brain dead, so he was out. The girl who seemed to be the leader was entirely too chirpy and I figured if I had to spend five hours on a raft with her I would probably end up smacking her in the head with my paddle. But the other guide seemed pretty cool. He was a young, small guy who was keen but didn't say too much. Perfect!

They gave us some instructions and then we drove about ten or twelve miles up the river to the starting point. We chose our vests and helmets and then scampered down the embankment to the rafts. More instructions. Now I was a bit nervous. Who would be on our raft? Who would be our guide? It's all very random and usually comes down to standing in the right spot next to the right peeps. A few of the group were getting rowdy and acting like fools. I slowly shifted to my right, away from them.

In the end, we got lucky. Our raft was good - there was five of us plus the guide. Myself, Paulo, a couple and their friend. Our guide was Nick (the young, small guy), who it transpired, only graduated high school in 2004 and is just 20 years old! He was really chilled out though and we had a great time.

There were three rafts in total because the group was so big. We did two sections of the Umpqua River for a total of thirteen miles. The day was divided in two - a couple of hours before lunch and then a few hours after lunch.

The morning was fairly easy - kind of like training. there were a few rapids but a lot of very still sections. I sat in the front on the right hand side and took to my duties straight away. You just have to listen to the guide, watch the other guy in front and paddle when he paddles. It was quality!

We traveled down the river and all of us chatted, getting to know each other. Nick didn't seem interested in having us work too hard but he knew the river well and instructed us well in the tougher sections.

We stopped for lunch. More chats and some great sambos lovingly prepared by the guides.

The second part of the day kicked off and we finally got into some decent rafting. There were a lot more rapids in the second section and some of them were quite big. There are names for them as well, like 'Alligator Back', 'Frogger I', 'Frogger II', 'Eifel Tower' and 'Pinball'. We had a great time. The only thing is that because Nick was so chilled we didn't really go into the rapids as fast as we probably could have. And we didn't do much work at all in the calm parts. But, he knew every section of the river and we had the craic. There were a few sections where nobody in the raft said anything and it was great. It was so quiet and peaceful. The scenery was amazing and you could just chill out and get lost in your thoughts.

Back at the meeting point, we said our thanks and goodbyes, changed and were back in the car driving down 5S - again! We drove to Grant's Pass to try and find a bed for the night.

I haggled my way into a Travelodge for a decent(ish) price since we didn't have any coupons. We cleaned up and watched some of the Phillies-Braves game.

Once again we went out looking for somewhere to eat. As usual there was nothing going on. We pulled into Ric's Corvette Bar & Grill and remarkably they had called last order and closed the kitchen at 8:00pm! We ended up going to Angela's Mexican Restaurant which wasn't too bad. The food was OK and our waiter was a nice guy who kept referring to us as 'amigo' and 'senor'.

We were both really tired so we went back to the room and relaxed with some tele & wifi. The time is flying by and we are one day closer to the end of the trip, which is now starting to loom on the horizon...