Katie MacDonald - Bike the US for MS
Day 11 - Aug. 16 - Humbug State Park, OR to Crescent City, CA - 82.2miBeautiful last day in Oregon. Left camp with Sarah, and about 2 miles in, passed Sully with a flat tire. We eventually caught up to Amanda and stopped to take some pictures, and then Sully caught up to us and the four of us rode together to the first rest stop. At the first rest stop, a lady in a cafe recommended that we check out the Double D Cafe for breakfast, which we did. Best breakfast sandwich I've had in a while. Right after breakfast, we lost Sully and Amanda, and learned later that it was because Sully got a second flat tire. We had our biggest climb of the day, and had the entire lane to ourselves on the descent because there was a flagged controlling traffic. I hit a high speed of 48.5mph. The rest of the stretch into rest stop two was hilly, and Sarah and I stopped to take lots of photos. Rest stop two was in a Fred Meyers parking lot, and a lot of people were still there, so we got to hang out for a bit. Six miles after the stop we crossed over into California! There was a nice big sign, and we took lots of pictures. The last 20mi or so were decently flat, but I am already missing the Oregon coast. Camp is at St. Paul's church in Crescent City, and I get to sleep on a couch tonight. Andrea and I grabbed dinner at Burger King, and then shopped around at Walgreens. We ended the night with a game of euchre, and hung out outside the church chatting for a bit, and cuddling with a cat. Redwoods tomorrow! Day 12 - Aug. 17 - Crescent City to Redwood National Park - 39.9miWhat a great day. The couch I slept on last night was so comfy, and we "slept in" until about 7am when other people started getting up and moving around. As I was getting ready, a gentleman stopped by and asked what we were up to. His father-in-law has MS, and he saw the trailer parked out front. I explained the ride, and he gave me a $2 donation. Apparently he even called the newspaper to tell them about us. Because it was going to be a short 35mi day, we left camp around 9:15am, and 10 of us headed straight to Denny's for breakfast. I had a huge breakfast of sticky bun pancakes, bacon, eggs, hash browns, and toast. After breakfast, we hit our biggest climb yet on the trip - 1,200ft straight up into Redwood National Park. We got pictures of the sign on the way up, and enjoyed a nice descent after a few false summits. We waited by the beach for a few people to catch up (they were stopped by a construction flagged) and then headed out to the Mysterious Trees tourist attraction. They had a giant statue of Paul Bunyan out front, and there was someone controlling the mic to make him talk to people, which was funny to watch. We got fudge and ice cream, and then bought tickets to take the tram up to the top. The ride up to the top was cool, but nothing too special, but the walk around in the forest was pretty amazing. After this it was a few short miles to the Country Club for lunch. The place was basically a dive bar, but the food was actually pretty good. Half a mile past this was a tree that we could bike through, which was a really cool experience. The ride up the hill to the tree was super steep, and Sarah dropped her chain right at the start, which made it difficult for me to pedal because I was laughing so hard. Right after the tour through tree, we did 4 "bonus mile" (i.e. we got lost). After we got back on track there was a big climb and Michael took off. When we got to the top, he was waiting for us with flowers to apologize for his contribution to getting us lost. The descent into camp was pretty incredible. Normally I am a huge fan of steep descents where you can go 30+ mph, but this low grade descent was perfect for taking in the trees and beautiful scenery around us. Dinner consisted of eating ramen noodles, and desert was s’mores around a campfire in the middle of Redwood National Park. Not a bad way to end the day. Day 13 - Aug. 18 - Redwood National Park to Arcata - 45.8miSlept surprisingly well last night, which I wasn’t expecting because I never sleep well when we are in bear territory. Headed over to the trailer to grab my stuff, and saw Sully building a bike. Turns out Andrea’s friend Camille showed up in an Uber at 1:30am to join the team. I was super impressed that she made it all the way out here, and managed to find Andrea’s tent in the dark. It was freezing cold this morning, so I bundled up, and headed out with Sarah. Just after leaving camp. We stopped to take pictures of some elk that were chilling in a meadow on the side of the road. We rode along the 101 for most of the way into the rest stop, and saw some more elk hanging out in a marsh. We got a tweet saying to use caution on Patrick Point Road, because of rough terrain, but a few miles into the road we were wondering why they had bothered to send the tweet - there were a few potholes, but nothing too crazy. We spoke way too soon, because shortly after discussing this, the road was became horrible. Gravel, potholes, and bumps everywhere. We also stopped for a few minutes when some people in cars on the road ahead of us started getting out of their cars and screaming at each other. Not sure what was going on, but they were not happy about something. Eventually they quieted down, and we were able to pass by and make it to rest stop one. We walked a couple blocks down from the stop to check out a cafe for breakfast, and boy was it worth it. It took about 30min to get our food, but the bagel breakfast sandwich was amazing. The road out of the rest stop was worse than the road into it, but I had some fun treating it like a cyclocross course. Eventually we got on a bike path that had a nice gravel hill to climb, and then we were on quiet back roads all the way into town. The church we are staying at is about 4mi off route and out of town. It’s pretty small, so I sent up my tent in the backyard. We grabbed an Uber into town to use the showers and hot tub at the fitness centre, and then walked to a brewery for lunch. We walked around town after eating, and met up with some other people from the team. We all ended up at a cider bar/pie restaurant that was really good, and then a few of us went to a Mexican place after that. We grabbed an Uber back to the church after Mexican, and it turns out the Uber driver who drove Camille to the Redwoods also drove them home from the Mexican restaurant! Such a small world. A few of us ended up hanging out in the van talking for a few hours, and we ended up staying up pretty late. Rest day tomorrow though, so we can sleep in as late as we want! Day 14 - Aug. 19 - Arcata - Rest DayIt was freezing cold in my tent last night. I was wearing all the warm layers I had, and it was still pretty chilly. I stayed in my tent until about 10am, and then got up and ready for the day. Walked with Michael, Sarah, and Eddie to the cafe for breakfast, but on the way there everyone decided that they wanted pizza instead, so we took an uber into town. We walked around the farmers market while we waited for the pizza place to open at 11. After we ate, Michael's friend showed up with Michael's dog Debo. We drove back to the church, and I ended up going back to the cafe to use the internet, which wasn't that good. I had hoped to get a blog post up, but that might have to wait until tomorrow. Spent the afternoon getting the usual rest day errands done - laundry and groceries - and then came back and made spanish rice and bean wraps for dinner. Early to bed tonight - it's only 9pm and I am already in my tent and ready to go to sleep. Day 15 - Aug. 20 - Arcata to Weott - 63miWoke up to the sound of roosters this morning, seemingly coming from every direction. Packed up our tents, wet with morning dew as per usual, and then Sarah and I set off for the day. We got about 100 meters when we heard Michael yelling at us that we were going the wrong way. Great way to start the day. We turned around, and rode towards Eureka with Melissa, Kelly, and others right behind us. The boys soon caught up, and Sarah and I managed to stay close enough behind them that we could follow them on the many turns that brought us through town, without even needing to pull out our maps. We were on the 101 basically the entire way into rest stop one in Ferndale, where I got a delicious heart shaped scone, at a really cool cafe that has a canoe making school in the back. Just as we were about to leave rest stop one, the route leaders learned that our plans for camp that night had fallen through, and they needed to find a new place for us to stay. We set off again, not knowing where exactly we would be sleeping that night, but the route leaders solved the problem really quickly, and we got a tweet with the new campsite only a couple miles after leaving the van. We turned onto the famous Avenue of Giants a little bit later, and were riding between enormous beautiful redwood trees. We saw some bikes outside of a cafe down the road, and stopped to join Michael, Kurt, Jen, and Jeff for some food. The waitress was pretty funny, but kept getting everyone’s order wrong. There was a little store attached to the cafe, so I bought some postcards and stickers after lunch, and then we made our way to the campsite. Before we got there though, we ran into some teammates stopped at a blackberry popsicle stand. Apparently some local cyclist occasionally donates money so that cyclists passing by can get free popsicles! This has got to be one of my favourite campsites of the trip so far, so I am really glad that our other plans fell through. We are right in the forest, and Kaylyn even managed to set up her tent in a tree, which I am super jealous of. There was a giant tree stump that someone had carved handholds and footholds into so that we could climb up and view the campsite from above. In the evening, we had a team meeting to go over a few things, and the route leaders officially announced that brom (bike prom) would take place in Olema. We mostly hung out at the picnic table chatting for the rest of the night, but also ended up watching Kurt film a spinoff of MTV Crib’s about his tent and the trailer. So hard to hold myself back from laughing while they were filming. Day 16 - Aug. 21 - Weott to Redway - 20.3miWe woke up in the redwoods, which was so beautiful. Sarah, Michael, and I were on the road by about 8:50am, because apparently people were gabbing breakfast in a town 11mi away, and were planning to watch the eclipse there. We got there in less than an hour, and met up with almost the whole team. I had a great breakfast sandwich with home fries, and we took turns borrowing Richard's glasses to look at the eclipse. It was pretty crazy to see. After breakfast, it was a short 10mi or so into camp, so we were there before noon. There isn't a whole lot to do here, but some of us hung by the pool for a little bit. It was so weird being at camp so early, we didn't really know what to do with ourselves to fill the afternoon. A few of the guys biked into town for food, and came back saying that it was pretty sketchy and that people should go as a group. Sarah, Michael, and I ended up going in at around 4:30, and ended up finding a really nice pizza place. Michael even bumped into someone he knew, and town wasn't nearly as sketchy as we had heard. When we got back to camp we played cards for a little bit, and then just hung out and talked until the sun went down and we were ready to go to bed.
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katie macdonald
Summer 2016, I biked 4,295 miles, coast to coast across the USA to raise money and awareness for MS. March 2017, I biked self-contained from San Francisco to San Diego with my friend Carissa. August 2017 I connected the dots and biked from Seattle to San Francisco. Summer 2018 I am heading to the UK! Follow my journey here! Miles biked for MS:
6,800.13
Updated August 27, 2018 Archives
January 2019
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