Day 5 – Eureka to Big Ben’s
August 6th, 2013 | 
Author: Finally left Erueka at 11:00 a.m. And headed slowly back south. It warmed up S we continued and the marine layer burned off and we again, exited off and road the 30 pr so miles o f the Avenue of the Giants, stoping to take some more photos and read the signs along the way. At the end we merged back on highway 101 and continued south. By the town of Garberville they were wrapping up the 29th Reggie on the River festival, and the traffic was a bit heavy through there, but not bad. Soon after that we exited off for Route 1 again from the part we bypassed before. This is one of the twistiest roads passing through stands of redwoods that I have ridden in a while as we decended to the Pacific Ocean once. This part of the pacific coast reminds me a lot of New England’s coast with lots of coves and rocky jagged coast lines.
The Start or end of Route 1 by the Lost Coast.
We continued south and stopped in Fort Bragg to call Ben, who lives in Hopland. Ben just got back from the Reggie festival and said “Come on down!”
We continued south on 1 to 128, and started heading inland again. 128 was an absolute beautiful road with about 30 to 40 miles of redwood groves which led us into wine country-beautiful ride!
We arrived at Bens place and this place is just a wonderland of plants and rustic woodworking of Ben. We slept out in the “Hopland Hide-a-way”, a cabin on his property.
Big Ben’s Place-just amazing!
Nice place to park the bike -Ben’s garden.
The next day Ben treated us to a ride on some abandon tracks. Check it out.
After that adventure we went in the Russian River and hung out at the Dirty Dawg and did a little swimming.
The Dirty Dawg on the Russian River.
Then it was harvest time to go in the garden and collect potatoes and veggies for dinner. It was great to pick you food, then eat it for dinner.
Posted in 2013-07-31 WTF Tour
Very cool love Ben’s RR looks like a great trip.
Beautiful!
Big Ben’s home and gardens look amazing. Not everybody has their own train, full scale tracks and tunnels!!!
OK – that tops it all…your own railroad!! Awesome is an understatement…great vid through the tunnel and the wheels on the track shot was trick…now it is official- when I die and return to earth, I want to be Shai and hang out with Jimmy V!! Ben -that is without a doubt the coolest train car ever – great to go pick fresh herbs in – I have no doubt!!
Private railroad and the Dirty Dawg, all we need are some swamp strippers and that would be the new hang out! Great pics and video!
Totally AWESOME!! Does Ben want to adopt me?
Looks like so much fun! Big Ben’s is a vacation in itself.
Great having you both Jimmy and Shai, come back again soon.
A day on the tracks is always fun
Great Railroad! But does that thing have brakes? An engine? Was it just gravity down the hill? How did you get it back up the hill? I want one. Just too cool.