Weird and wonderful in Humboldt

Day 2: Humboldt Bay to Loleta Beach

"Now that's what we want to see," says Beetle the next morning, looking out across Humboldt Bay at the smoke drifting from the stacks of the pulp-mill plant in nearby Samoa. It's rising straight up. "We don't want to fight the wind when we head out to the point of the bay," he explains.

We outfit the lizard with four inflatable pontoons underneath its carriage, and four sets of ingenious paddleboat-style fins and inner tube-like "doughnuts" that attach to each wheel. It's a new setup for Beetle, but he's pretty confident we'll be all right.

As we roll down the boat ramp, spectators urge us to go for broke, but we take it slow. We settle into the bay … and float. Not only that, we scoot, our feet pedaling comfortably above the water.

Of all the sculptures we pass along the way, Beetle takes the greatest satisfaction in passing "Extreme Makeover," Duane Flatmo's giant Picasso-like head on wheels. The longtime veterans have a friendly rivalry, fueled by Flatmo's status as media darling of Humboldt County. The artist, famed for his many murals around Eureka, had recently been a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he was lauded as "California's most interesting resident."

Beidleman opts to pass Flatmo on the inside, effectively cutting him off from the view of spectators along the waterfront.

The last thrill of the day before hitting the beach for a campout is the hill above the hamlet of Loleta. After a long, long pedal up, we're offered cold water and iced strawberries. Then we rocket down a winding county road, sitting on an open carriage of metal bars underneath a giant frill-necked lizard buffeted by a crosswind. And I learn there's a very fine line between giddiness and panic.