Appropriately enough our next stop after the cannabis capital of California was a place called Weed. Normally we use Google to give us the distance between any two places but inputting “Garberville to Weed” gets some really weird results! Anyway it was a long way so we made an early start in cool and misty conditions with the temperature gauge reading 54F.
We got back on 101 but soon took a detour onto the “Avenue of the Giants” which is a smaller road running parallel to the 101 which winds through the Redwood trees. The 101 is known as the “Redwood Highway” and provides plenty of entertainment for the tree aficionado but the Avenue takes you right through them and they tower above the road on either side.
It was an absolutely beautiful ride and its grandeur is best summed up by Mark’s achingly poetic remark when we stopped to view some particularly large trees – “Ayup, yon’s a big b*gger”. Wordsworth could not have put it better.
Soon after that we turned onto Highway 36 which runs over the Coastal Range mountains and connects with Interstate 5. This is a really spectacular road that winds through the forests and then drops down into green fields that are very reminiscent of England. Unfortunately for the first 25 miles or so we were stuck behind a convoy of three large, yellow, school buses which crawled up the hills at between 30-40 miles an hour as an ever-growing queue of vehicles trailed behind them. Had it not been for the amazing scenery we might well have lost the will to live. Finally they pulled in and let us past and we were free to enjoy the rest of the road as nature had intended (ie leaning into corners on a high-powered bike).
Towards the end of the 36 we were running low on fuel and were relieved to see a gas station only to find that they had run out of gas! They were however at least able to provide a bottle of water and assured us that there was another gas station in 5 miles.
Having filled up, we were on Interstate 5. We’d covered 190 miles at this point and had another 80 to go to get to Weed. By this stage the temperature had risen to nearly 100F.
We’d travelled this road on our second day out and it was interesting to compare our feelings then to our impressions now. We’ve been so far and seen so many amazing things over the last month but nevertheless you could never get tired of riding this section of road. There are wooded mountains on either side, we crossed over the beautiful Shasta lake and up ahead was the massive Mount Shasta which is 14000 feet high and is still covered in snow.
Weed nestles under Mount Shasta and is a small town of only about 3000 people. It seems to survive on serving the truckers and other travellers on the Interstate. Apparently two years ago it actually snowed here at the beginning of June – which makes us appreciate how lucky we have been with the weather on this trip.
Tomorrow we plan to get back to Bend which is just over 200 miles north of here.
Over the Hill and Far Away.......... 
You know gentlemen, as you wind down this journey, I muse on when you will plot your great Canadian adventure. Although we share the same continent! our scenery and people are second to none and I think you need to plan another adventure above the 49th parallel.