Was up very early primarily due to the time change, extended
nap we took last night and, the fact that I wanted to do a little work to take
the edge off things for me… timesheets, expense reports and, e-mail all before
we packed up and headed out. Our day was
starting out overcast with mist and rain.
Since this was going to be our first trip north bound and we
were both very unfamiliar with the terrain and geography of northern
California, Oregon and Washington, my route planning consisted primarily of
point-to-point destinations while staying as much as possible along the coast
roads. We’d first need to get over to
the coast from out of Napa Valley.
By the time we’d packed and checked out of our hotel, it was
~0715. Our first route point would be
Guerneville, approximately 30 miles due west.
Our GPS took us along all the back roads, past the Petrified Forest,
through some wine country including Kendall Jackson and Korbel Wineries and
over Hwy 101. Misted and rained for most
of the way until after we got to and through Guerneville. The named road we were on turned into Rt. 116
outside of Guerneville and follows the Russian River all the way to its mouth
near Jenner. As we continued west we
stopped at a small waypoint, Duncan Mills, along the way that had an
interesting General Store. We stopped
just to stretch our legs, browse around the store, take some pictures and enjoy
the clearing skies of blue.
Jumped back in our SUV and continued on to our next point,
Jenner. The weather continued to get
better and better as we got closer to the coast. Route 116 intercepts PCH about 1 ½ miles
south of Jenner. Jenner’s a very small
coastal town with one gas station next to a restaurant and across the road from
a tourist center. We decided to pull in
for a biology break, soak up the great weather, air and scenery. Just north outside of Jenner we pulled over
into the parking lot of River’s End Restaurant & Inn, was closed. The restaurant occupies a high point
overlooking the mouth of the Russian River and the Pacific Ocean. Pretty excellent view! On to Stewart’s Point ~25miles up the coast.
This portion of the PCH heading north has many similar
features to PCH south of San Francisco:
spectacular views; winding, hairpin turns; places to enjoy the
magnificent vistas; plenty of nature; very few people and only the occasional
hamlet or small town along the way. I
almost ran out of gas because I assumed there would be ample places along the
way to get gas… wrong! By the time we
pulled into Stewart’s Point, basically a large barn with a general store and 2
gas pumps, I was sitting on empty on my fuel gauge. This particular gas station was charging an
arm and a leg for a gallon of gas – well over $4/gal – so we only took on $20
worth, purchased some snacks and continued on our way to Gualala, just another
10miles or so north. Gualala appeared to
be much more populated, relatively speaking, and had several gas stations,
including a Philips66, selling much more reasonably priced fuel to fill up on.
Side
Note: Back to my observations about human life
along this section of PCH just north of San Francisco… not really fair to say
it was devoid of human habitation, it’s just that the few homes we saw west of
the road on the beach front, were few and far between. There were a couple of locations that had clusters
of homes spread about but, certainly didn’t see people bustling about in these
‘neighborhoods’. Just felt very
isolated, beautiful and peaceful. In
many instances there were no overt signs of modern living, by this I mean
electricity… some homes had solar panels mounted on their roofs. Based on the remote locales and relative
scarcity of homes, one would really need to be comfortable living in apparent
isolated conditions without many of the trappings of modern cities and without
a lot of other people nearby.
We continued on, enjoying the drive and just soaking in the
surrounding landscape while passing through and by man-made things without too
much thought. Lunch time was approaching
and there were no restaurants of any kind in sight… however, we had plenty of food saved in a Styrofoam
cooler purchased in Calistoga, the remains of our picnic on Jade Island, and
decided that we should have a picnic on this beautiful day. Out of nowhere the small village of Elk
appeared, ~30 miles north of Gualala. To
passerby’s the town appeared to be a handful of buildings lined along a small
stretch of PCH overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
It would have been easy to have continued driving and bypass
completely. Spied a general store,
parked in front of it and went in. The
proprietors were very friendly and liked chatting up visitors. They told us that right across the road there
were picnic tables and a path down to the water with some nice vistas for
photography. So, we bought some bread
and local jam and literally drove across the road and into a dirt parking area
very close to some picnic tables placed underneath some trees and a convenient,
modern ‘out house’ aka, ‘loo’ or ‘wash room’.
Rosie and I unloaded the SUV and with our picnic items in
hand, carted everything over to 1 of the picnic tables a short walk away. We were the only ones taking advantage of the
picnic tables on this day. There was the
odd park ranger visiting the restroom and a few other folks out for a stroll
and taking in the sites but, that was it.
Lunch was fantastic! Just tasted
so much better outside in perfect weather even if it was just the leftovers
we’d carried along from Chateau Montelena.
Spent a very pleasant 45mins in Elk.
Never did walk all the way down to beach, just admired it from our
elevated position.
After lunch and a quick biology break, we threw out the
remains of our picnic, jumped back in to the SUV and continued our trek up PCH
towards our next waypoint: Ft. Bragg. Ft. Bragg, a small picturesque coastal town
~25miles north of Elk was just a pass through for us. Just north outside of town limits PCH dipped
down to sea level and a very pretty driftwood lined beach opened up and we
quickly pulled over and parked along the side of the road. There were half a dozen other cars stopped
where we had either taking photos of the beach or getting out to take a stroll,
which is exactly what Rosie and I decided to do. Our first opportunity this trip to actually
walk on a beach just because! Cleone
Beach was littered with tons of driftwood, rocks and a briny pool currently,
due to low tide, being fed by a small fresh water rivulet. The predominant feature of the beach besides
the cliffs on both sides, was the ‘sea stack’ (a large rock/boulder in the
water) that you could actually walk out to and touch. Conditions were such that the large rock cast
a reflection on the sands which glistened like a mirror due to the gentle salt
water waves covering the very flat area around the sea stack. Very cool!
We spent about 30 minutes just enjoying the sand and water on our feet
and the sea breeze. Almost hated to
leave but, we needed to if we were going to reach our destination for the day,
Eureka.
Rosie took over driving as we left Cleone Beach and headed
up to our next waypoint, Leggett, where PCH intercepts Hwy 101, about 45miles
north of Ft. Bragg, to continue north.
After leaving Leggett we started to see signs for ‘Confusion Hill’, a
tourist attraction opened back in 1949 and famous for its ‘gravity house’, 40ft
redwood totem pole carved where it stood, now the parking lot, and a narrow
gauge railroad train attraction. The
gift show there also had a lot of Bigfoot collectibles! We were definitely going to stop there. Confusion Hill was located about 11miles
outside of Leggett and part of Piercy, an unincorporated community within Mendocino
County. We only spent enough time at the
attraction to take some photos and browse the gift shop – where we did buy some
gradu, including my 1st Bigfoot T-shirt! I was happy.
J
I took over driving and jumped back on to Hwy 101N, aka
Redwood Hwy, to continue our journey through Bigfoot Country! While we were in the gift shop at Confusion
Hill, as with most places, we struck up a conversation with the proprietor as
to things to see in these parts. He was
quite helpful and suggested getting off the 1o1 and onto the Avenue of the
Giants, which basically parallels Hwy101 for ~31miles through the Humboldt
Redwoods State Park area. He recommended
that we exit off of the 101 onto the Avenue of the Giants up by Myers Flats,
about 30miles north of Piercy. That’s
exactly what we did.
This area of California, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, contains Rockefeller
Forest, the world's largest remaining contiguous old-growth forest of coast redwoods many of which are gigantic and hundreds upon
hundreds of years old. You really can’t
drive along the Avenue of the Giants without marveling at the density and size
of all the redwoods… really breathtaking.
We only made 2 stops along the 2omiles of the Avenue we traversed: first stop was just outside of Myers Flats
and was a visitor’s center. Spent just
enough time there to walk around some and hit the head. Approximately 8miles along the Avenue, we
pulled over into an area known as Founder’s Grove. Near Weott, this grove has an easy 1/2 mile
self-guided walk with informational booklets available at the beginning of the
trail. This well-travelled trail is a good example of old-growth redwood forest
and contains a few very big trees, including the Founder's Tree (346 ft. tall),
which we saw and took some photos of and, the Dyerville Giant (~370 ft. tall)
which fell down in 1991. Rosie and I decided not to trek to the Dyerville Giant
only because it was getting late in the day and getting dark. So, jumped back in to our ride and continued
along the Avenue until we jumped back on to the 101 near Stafford and drove on
towards Eureka.
Just south of Eureka approaching Fortuna, I saw a Starbucks
sign and decided to pull off for a drive through hot beverage, a pick me up if
you will. With steaming triple tall,
non-fat latte in hand, continued the final ~17miles to Eureka.
Side Note: Eureka is
the principal city and county seat of Humboldt County in
the Redwood Empire region
of California. The city is located
on U.S. Route 101 on the shores of Humboldt Bay, 270 miles (430 km)
north of San Francisco and 100 miles
(160 km) south of the Oregon border.
At the 2010 census, the population of the city
was 27,191. Eureka is the largest west coast city between San
Francisco and Portland and, the westernmost city of more than 25,000
residents in the 48 contiguous states. It
is the regional center for government, health care, trade, and the arts on the
North Coast north of the San Francisco Bay Area. Greater Eureka is the location
of the largest deep water port between San Francisco and Coos Bay, a stretch of about 500
miles (800 km). The
headquarters of both the Six Rivers National Forest and the North Coast Redwoods District of
the California State Parks System are in Eureka. As entrepôt for hundreds of lumber
mills that once existed in the area, the city played a leading role in the
historic West Coast lumber trade. The entire city is a state historic landmark,
which has hundreds of significant Victorian homes, including the
nationally recognized Carson Mansion, and the city has retained
its original 19th century commercial core as a nationally recognized Old Town Historic District. Eureka
is home to California's oldest zoo, the Sequoia Park Zoo.
As we entered the city boundary and pulled over to refuel,
Rosie started browsing for places to stay.
She found an extremely low priced Quality Inn just north of city center
and very close to Old Town for just $70/night.
We booked it… little did we know that it was way low rent. The A/C didn’t work, nor the phone in the
room but, we did have a rotating fan we used just to move air around our
room. Wasn’t that big a deal since we
were only staying 1 night and leaving early the next morning. After unloading the SUV and settling a bit
into our room, we went on a brief tour of Old Town while looking for a good
place to have dinner. The hotel manager
had recommended a seafood restaurant and that’s where we headed.
The Sea Grill was in fact a terrific seafood restaurant and
seated us immediately. We ordered a few
drinks and relaxed while we ordered dinner.
Rosie went with the Mahi Mahi while I chose the Halibut. Both excellent cuts of fish. Enjoyed our dinner which was moderately
priced and the restaurant lived up to its reputation as the ‘best restaurant in
town’… ‘course, what did we really know only having eaten in the 1 place. Since I was still feeling under the weather
from New Jersey and Rosie was starting to feel poorly, we went in hunt of a
Target to purchase more OTC drugs. After
a couple of wrong turns due to poor signage we finally made it to Target, went
inside and bought our medications, including a small notebook for me to take
notes in, and headed back to the Quality Inn to call it an end to another great
day. Got back to the hotel at
~2030. While Rosie called it a night, I
logged on to work just to take the edge off some e-mail and put to paper my
blogging notes of the day before hitting the rack myself. Our total miles traveled on this day: 276miles.
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