Christopher: This was a four day trip that was planned by me…which meant that it was totally last minute. Sarah and I decided that we should take a motorcycle trip before she went back to school in Denver. I said that I would plan the whole thing, and Sarah was all for it. Man, I can’t believe she didn’t want to help.
So, after looking for a few hours online , I found a few campsites available in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. We’d be able to camp and ride some awesome roads on one trip…kind of like our Yosemite trip, but we’d be able to camp out longer at one site. I’d planned on using one site as our basecamp and riding some loops each day, then returning to the basecamp each night. The loops were awesome rides, and each night at camp was a blast! Great riding, great scenery, great food (every night MEAT grilled over an open fire). Just awesome.
Sarah: we had an awesome time! Luckily, Chris is an awesome cook on the camp fire. We had steaks, chili, and chops. Not bad for ‘roughing’ it 
I was sad that this would be our last trip for several months as I was heading back to Denver to finish up my school. But this allows us time to figure out our next trip in the winter!
Day 1: Santa Cruz to Humboldt Redwoods State Park. (340 miles)
We left early in the morning and took Hwy 1 all the way up. Took over 10 hours, but, as usual, it was a lot of fun riding the coastline. Plus, we never ride on the freeway unless absolutely necessary.
Which brings me to a tangent: I think it’s sad to see motorcycles traveling on the I-5 between Los Banosin the North and Los Angeles in the South. It could be out of necessity that these motos are on the freeway, like time constraints, medical reasons, etc., but…what a boring ride…hell, it’s boring in a car, so I don’t want to even imagine what’s it’s like on a motorcycle. I guess if I wanted to just wear out the middle of my tires, then that would be the best ride to take. (Gotta love tangents.)
We get to the Hidden Springs campground right at sundown, pick up some firewood, set up camp, and plan for the next day’s ride. (insert picture)
The campground at Hidden Springs had amazingly secluded sites, considering how many sites there were. We had a site 124 (I think) and it was perfect. The vegatation that surrounded each site kept everything private, unlike some of the other campgrounds in the HRSP, where everyone is out in the open and one can see from one side of the campground to the other.
Day 2: Loop from Hidden Springs Campground to Capetown to Fernbridge and back (130 miles, seven hours)
After waking up to the sights and sounds of nature (the birds chirping, the sunlight permeating through the tent, and me yawning and moaning for coffee), we start our day with a hearty breakfast of eggs, spam, toast (with butter and jelly, of course), and coffee (nothing beats a french press out in the woods). Our first loop would be considerably short, however, it still took a long time due to the roads and terrain.
We made our way through the HRSP on the Avenue of Giants. What great ride to be amongst what truly are giants. Riding at a slow speed to enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells is definitely the way to go. No point in speeding because there are plenty enough cars on that road.
We knew we started to approach the coast when the temp began to drop and it got downright chilly when going 45-50mph. The high speed winds didn’t help, as they just pushed Sarah and I around, but made for some really neat coastline action; there were lots of violent wave crashes and the color of the water was an odd brownish gray (probably due to the high wind conditions stirring everything up?). As we finished the coastal ride and began to turn inland towards Fernbridge, the road began to narrow and get a little goaty.
Fernbridge was a perfect place to stop for some food. There are quite a few restaurants/eateries on the main strip. After lunch, we stopped by Jamie’s Jams, a tiny hole in the wall store that sold fresh jams and preserves. We were quite surprised to see that there wasn’t a store clerk in sight, and that you actually purchased the jams by the honor system. After putting the eight bucks (pricey!) into the money holer, we got the red plum preserves and headed out.
Day 3: Loop from HRSP to Fortuna to Weaverville to Willow Creek and back (320 miles, 8 hours)
This loop had lots of scenery and very few cars on the road with us. It started out really cold, but ended up warm as we made our way back to basecamp.
Heading north from basecamp on the 101, we exited HWy 36. It was a scenic route that led us east into Shasta Trinity Forest. It was a gradual climb, and higher we got, the colder it became.
We had to pull over more than a couple times to warm up before getting to the juntion with Hwy 3. The turn onto the 3 was kind of tricky. It came up real fast at the top of a hill and we had to make a quick left onto the 3 towards Weaverville.
We took a brake for lunch in Weaverville at a Noelle’s Garden Cafe on Main St. It was a gorgeous day and the place had some really cute outdoor seating, where we had studel! I was thinking apple strudel, but it turned out that they were actual meals! I had the ham and egg strudel, Sarah had the spinach and cheese strudel. They were both yummy. The town itself was very rustic and had looked like an town you might imagine from the old west.
After lunch we headed on Hwy 299. Great ride with lots of high speed sweepers. The whole road paralled the Trinity River (I think that’s the name). After having the river well below us on the left for most of the ride, we finally hit the 101 and went south to Eureka.
We stopped at the Lost Coast Brewery for some nachos and a beer. Afterwards, made our way back towards basecamp stopping in a the really small town of Scotia for some chicken to barbeque for the night.
Day 4: Headed back home (sort of)
On this last leg of the journey, Sarah and I decided to try out some other routes inland, since we’ve been up and down the coast on several occasions. We decided to see what Napa Valley had to offer in terms of riding. There wasn’t much. But there were A LOT of wineries…it is Napa Valley. It was really hot, and we changed our minds about heading home and decided to stay out another night.
We took the 101 South for a while and broke off east on the 175 and headed towards Calistoga hoping to find a place to stay. We couldn’t find anything that was in a town that had anything to do! Sure we saw places to stay, but the towns were sooo small, and we wanted somewhere to hang out, besides in the hotel.
We decided to hit the coast again and hoped to find a place to stay. We didn’t think it would be too hard as it was the Monday of Memorial Day and everyone was heading home from their holiday. We took the 128 west out of Calistoga and headed towards Stewarts Point on the coast. That road was very interesting as the tail end of it had a small town, in the mountains right before the road descended to the coast.
Once e headed south on Hwy 1, we began to get a little anxious to find a place to stay because the sun was going down. We finally found the Salt Point Lodge just north of Jenner. It was your standard hotel by the coast. Great views, high price. Side note, we spent a lot of money on dinner at the restaurant at the hotel. The food was mediocre, at best, and way overpriced. But when you’re the only game in town, I guess you can do that.
We headed home the next morning taking the freeways (yuck) to make up time. It didn’t matter, though, because we had a wonderful time taking in the gorgeous weather, scenery, and roads Northern California had to offer!
I was a little tentative at first, considering I couldn’t even walk properly, but Sarah and I both had to ride. Yes…we had to. 
