Yesterday the coastal fog only really left the coast and hour before sunset, there was no wind to blow it away and it didn’t heat up. In the morning it was back, enveloping the campsite and highway. It is a short ride to the state border and I’m back in California. The morning took me on back roads to Crescent City and a little coastal town in northern California. The rest of the day will be spent riding through Redwood State and National Park.

From Crescent City I immediately start climbing into the Redwoods, after a few hundred feet I emerge out of the coastal fog and into dappled sunlight over the fern covered forest floor. I can’t see anything from the road side vista points other than the top of the marine layer stretching out and hiding the sea below. As I get further into the redwood forest the old growth trees get larger and larger, some of them are truly huge, hard to comprehend.

Tonight I’m camped in the forest, beside a large fern meadow with signs warning not to approach the elk, maybe I’ll see some in the morning. Yesterday I startled a herd of elk on my of my descents along the coast, and they startled me too.