Illini 4000

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Day 70

Hello world!Day 70 definitely had its peaks and it’s valleys.We had an 85 mile day with what looked like not too much climbing on the elevation map, but that thing was WRONG.There was steep hill after steep hill, and I was physically exhausted by mile 20 :( It’s like I got bit by the tsetse fly or somethin. We were able to push through though and finish out the day.Thank god I did because I would’ve missed out on a lot!! The downhills were a lot of fun and in some parts, we were keeping up with the flow of traffic! We also got to bike right along the coastline which was incredible. We biked through the Redwoods again today and man, that will never get old. Right as we left the forest, there was an open field to our right and in it we saw 2 elk!! I had never seen elk before so that was really neat. Their antlers are massive!At lunch we met this odd duck of a guy named Mark who was soooo into what we were doing that when we left to finish the last 25 miles, he took out his drone and got footage of us biking for a little bit hahaha so be on the lookout for that... who knows if we’ll ever see the videoInstead of getting back onto the 101 for the last 25, my group opted in taking the scenic route with terrible roads but better views. We stopped a lot to take it all in because why not!? At one of our stops we even got to see a... WHALE (spotted first by Kathy). I thought it was funny because I told my group that today I was on the hunt to see dolphin or whale... my wish was granted!When we got closer to Eureka, we passed bison too! Today was jam packed full of seeing wild creatures. A very nice change of pace from your typical day of only seeing cow after cow (still saw those too though).Thanks to King Phil’s awesome parents, we had hot sandwiches for dinner!! They were tasty and it was nice to have a good meal after a long day on the bike.The night ended pretty early as there’s not much to do here in Eureka, CA. If you haven’t heard, the city doesn’t have the best rep, so we’re being a liiiittle cautious around here.I still wanna go to the beach though and check out the scene!Surfs up.Marge