Ride on!!!

For the benefit of our numerous fans who've expressed outrage at our lack of blog updates since the ride kicked off, let me apologize - the coal fired satellite uplink trailer was just too heavy to haul and we've been making do with a slightly more tenuous set up. But here we are beside the Eel river at the Pacific Lumber Company town of Rio Dell enjoying our first proper night on the road… Spaghetti and Sierra Nevada refueling our aching bones and good conversation circulating among us all.

Let's fill you in -

Today began literally at the crack of dawn in Arcata, sleeping soundly on the office floor generously provided by Kirk Cohune of Greenway Partners. We awoke to a stirring of citizens who arrived for the week's first 350 action - a short ride to neighboring Eureka. Arcata's mayor, Mark Wheatley, and an impressive host of local dignitaries (see below) arrived to speak of some of Arcata's many environmental accomplishments.

And then we were off…

Between Eureka and Rio Dell we had a shocking four (!) flat tires among the 17 riders, the morning mist lifted above the gorgeous farm country of the North Coast and some of the crew even witnessed the birth of a cow. Lunch was had in the charming hamlet of Ferndale, the kind of place you pass through saying "man, I could live here"… but conversation was on the topic at hand - climate change, the realities of what it means, what we can and cannot do to prevent it and some pretty deep discussions about the future of humanity in general.

Master photographer Peter Prato was on the ready all day. If we had the bandwidth we'd upload the whole shebang to flickr, but we can't so here are a tiny sample:


(The ride is on! Downward dog and upward slog)


(Lost again? map consultation)


(Looking awfully confident)


(On the road - gorgeous north coast cow country)


(rollin' on through the sunshine)


(end of the first day - a successful arrival at Rio Dell!)

More to come!