Day 13: Ferndale—small town USA

Novack's Adventures | Jody | Jun 8, 2011

Rain sucks!

Everynight it seems to rain for us. Which isn’t bad because we do get setup before the rain starts, but it means having to tear down a wet tent…and that simply takes time. The MSR Hubba Hubba I have is great. It allows me to tear the tent down without having to take the fly off. This makes the ability to keep the tent dry without disturbing the moisture on the inside of the fly from condensation possible. It also facilitates drying the fly.

Marcus has a North Face Tadpole. It is listed as a two person tent, but realistically it is a great one person mobile home. Marcus knows how to dry his tent out really well. After a quick whipe of the fly with a sponge, he pulls it off and hangs it in a tree facing the wind, and ideally the sun. He then sets his tent up on end as seen to the left. The sun pulls the moisture off and the wind airs it out. By leaving the tent setup and standing, the whole tent will dry within a half hour of setting it up in the wind. It is always fun to see how people handle this annoying task of getting a wet tent dry for packing.

After drying out, we said good bye to Carissa and wished her safe travels, then headed out with our destination to be Eureka. Apparently I was having the worst bike luck of the trip, or I should say, worst bike prep ever. After changing gears, brake caliper, wheels, and hubs in Newport; my bottom bracket started to get loose and make some serious noise. Basically every major moving component of the bike was about to be changed while on the trip…not bad. Marcus also needed a Thermarest as he forgot his, so we picked Adventure’s Edge as our first stop since they looked to have gear and a bike shop…it was a great decision.

I ended up with a new bottom bracket and a handle bar mounted, water proof “lunch box” that is now my best friend, as well as a few other knick nacks like a Seal Line dry bag for the MSR Hubba Hubba. Marcus ended up with a fancy new Thermarest that I will do a post about a little later on, and everyone else got the loose ends we needed. Chris, Seth, and the rest of the staff at Adventure’s Edge really hooked us up. On the way out, Chris talked us into heading to Ferndale, CA. It was off the highway about 5 miles, but we were told it was worth our time. We had nothing but great advice from bike shops, so we took it and headed out.

As it turns out, Ferndale is the cutest little small town America you can find. House after house was of pristine upkeep. White picket fences, manicured hedges, amazing color, and out of this world gardening; Ferndale blew us away. Have a look through the photo gallery below, and you will see what we are talking about. It was amazing.

A part of the series: Jody's Bike Trip