Friday, Oct 11, 2013
It’s Columbus day weekend and a group of SMBC riders are off to Death Valley.
Oops… that’s what should have happened but congress didn’t fund our federal government resulting in the closing of non-essential things like national parks. So it goes. Carl was slightly worried about this as he once got the boot for scheduling a Death Valley ride during a windy day. OK, it was a VERY windy day. Still… We assured him that scheduling a Death Valley ride for Columbus Day weekend had passed from his choice to club custom and that a second boot was not in his immediate future. At least not for this particular event. Besides, we have other members in our sights for the boot.
With Death Valley closed a group of five campers met at the Two Bird Cafe for breakfast. Dan and Lorraine joined us for the meal. After breakfast the five — Carl, Marc, Markus, Randy, and Tom — headed up the coast with Tom leading until we ran out of highway 1. There was a stop in Bodega Bay to put on another layer (temperatures stayed in the low 50s most of the day) and another stop in Ft Bragg to fuel both bike and body. Once on 101 we headed north to the Honneydew exit. Five miles down the narrow Bull Creek Flats Road (considered part of Mattole Road by the locals) we turned into the Albee Creek campground, one of many in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. None of us had stayed there before. Sites were available first come, first served. This was not a problem late in the season. The campground was maybe half full.
We set up camp. Those that were hungry ate dinner. Plenty of beer was consumed around the camp fire. A little brandy, too. All of us retired to tent and sleeping bag early.
Pictures by Marc and Markus
