October’s Big Adventure — the California Coast

For the big fall break trip, we headed to Northern California to see big trees, beautiful beaches, and lifelong friends.  Here’s what we saw:

Days 1-3:  the long drive to California
There’s not much to say about these first few days, which were largely spend just trying to “lay down miles” (Jac speak) and get all the way to California. The big highlight of the first few days (and the whole trip actually) was Jac cooking up dinner in our little motel rooms. Here he is below, in our Winnemucca room. He set the fire alarm off twice, but after that, super yummy.

Here’s the delicious breakfast we had the next morning.  We ate like this all week!!!!!  It was heaven. 🙂

En route to California: 
Once through Nevada, we drove through Oregon for awhile and spent one night in Klamath Falls. We were there to see two things: (1) Klamath Falls National Wildlife Refuge and (2) Crater Lake National Park. 

Welp, we tried to visit the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, only to discover that it’s completely barren due to the drought. All the wildlife has either died or doesn’t return, thanks for the greatly diminished water levels. Such a depressing and eye-opening experience.  Yikes!  We did see this family of deer.  At least we saw something.

There’s really nothing to do in Klamath Falls, so we made own entertainment by getting a little wine, some candy bars, and a dollar store puzzle to pass the evening. (We only got half way through it and quit, but still fun.)

 

The next day we tried to visit our reason #2 for being in Klamath Falls: Crater Lake National Park. Unfortunately, we got their just in time for the first snowfall of the season, and without snow tires or snow chains, we were turned away at the entrance, just a few miles from the crater.  Oh well, next time.  

From Crater Lake, it was a long day’s drive to the coast, but we finally made it, and our first stop was…

Crescent City
So beautiful and so rugged. Here’s a few shots:

We even got to spend some quality time with the local seal population—sunning themselves, playing in the water, occasionally making funny loud calls. It was fun to see, but they were just way too sleepy.  Get up! Entertain us! 🙂

 

Day 4
Redwoods National Park & Old-Town Eureka

We finally made it to the big trees! Staying in Trinidad, we had allotted two days amongst the coastal Redwoods of California, and for our first taste, we hiked through Ladybird Johnson Grove:

Pictures can’t convey how enormously, gigantically, astonishingly tall these trees are!!!

And super mossy.  So much growth and life in these forests!

Next we drove along the spectacular Drury Parkway for more time spent communing with tall trees and moss.

 

And then we were all tree’d out, so we headed south to…

Eureka
About an hour south of Redwood National Park, Eureka is an old fishing town that is chock-full of elaborate Victorian houses that were built thanks to the riches made through the gold rush, the ample timber industry in the area, and the rich coastal fishing waters.  Our first stop was this amazing, elaborate mansion:

(We texted the above picture to Betsy’s sisters, saying this was our AirBNB for the night.  They didn’t fall for it.)

Here are more snapshots of the amazing architecture found all over the city:

Eureka seems like a charming, ideal place to live…except they have a serious, serious, scary, serious homeless problem.  It was shocking to see.  Clearly A LOT of drug use among the homeless population.  Sad. Scary. Wow!

 
Our sweet little oceanfront, forest cabin
After exploring Eureka, we headed back to enjoy the evening at our CHARMING little accommodations in Trinidad — the View Crest Lodge. We LOVE it there. 

Our little cabin was set on a spot of beautifully green coastline, and included a big deck with a pretty view of the Pacific Ocean.  

We stayed there three nights in total, ate AMAZING food, relaxed, watched movies, soaked up the view… It was perfect!  Here was dinner on the second night:

Day 4
Redwoods National Park & Trinidad Beach
On day two in Redwoods National Park, we attempted to do the very cool Fern Grove trail, but the road getting there wasn’t good for Amelia, so we contented ourselves with these verdant scenes that we saw along the way.

Next, we roamed along the shoreline of Trinidad Beach.  Wow…so picturesque.  It was foggy when we first got there:

But then it cleared it and we spent quite awhile exploring, taking it in, just feeling happy to be alive.

 

 

 

Our next stop was also along the beach: Sue-Meg State Park. We hiked a paved, steep trail out to “Wedding Point”…

…and took in these beautiful views:

That was a lot of exploring.  It was time for dinner and a movie. Jac made some amazing microwave ribs:

Day 6
Driving the California Coast
It was time to head down the California coast for a bit. Our first stop was Ferndale, an adorable little city tucked against the mountain and full of dozens of well-preserved Victorian storefronts and homes.

While there we roamed around the historical town center while we took advantage of a free charging station (first time ever doing that).

At one point while we were off doing different things, Jac bought me this super fun “Bonsai Tree Growing Kit” because I had previously mentioning wanting to try growing bonsai trees. And Jac, being Jac,  tucked that away into his memory until this cute surprise.  So sweet.

 After Ferndale, we drove though The Avenue of the Giants, which was more big trees.

And while there, we drove through a tree! (the Shrine Drive Thru Tree)

While in the area, we also drove through Richardson Grove and stopped at One Log House, a tiny home build out of a hollowed out tree trunk:

From there, we finally made our way to Highway One aka Pacific Coast Highway.  What a beautiful drive!  Along the shoreline but so pastoral and natural — so unlike Southern California’s coastline!  Check out this quaint tree tunnel:

After some driving we checked out Point Cabrillo Lighthouse:

 and caught it just as the sun was setting. Beautiful!

After our long day exploring, we were ready for a night in.  We stayed at the average but affordable Surf Inn in Fort Bragg and enjoyed this fine dining Jac creation. 🙂

Day 7
More California Coast
Our first stop was the exciting and memorable Glass Beach.  It’s exactly what it’s name says — a BEACH covered in little GLASS pebbles. I was IN HEAVEN!

Why is there glass at the beach? Well, for decades, locals would dump their trash into the sea in this area. Over time, bottles in the trash were broken down by the surf, and then eroded like river rocks into little pebble shaped bits of glass.

This is the little alcove where we found the glass:

And guess what?  We took some. I didn’t know until now that it’s illegal to take any of the sea glass.  There aren’t any signs up.  Aaaah, we’re terrible.  Here’s our contraband stash:

Next was a quick stop to catch the beautiful views at Russian Gulch State Park.

 And then on to the quaint but very, very exclusive little seaside village of Mendocino. We didn’t spend long there, just long enough to catch a few snaps.

From there we continued south, missed a crucial turn on our route, and ended up going several hours out of the way. Yikes! Took some time to realize it, so to get back on track, we had to drive a twisty, forested, mountainous route through more super tall trees. It was probably very pretty, but we were really done with tall trees and slow, windy roads at that point. 

But finally…we made it back along the coast. So beautiful!!!

Our first stop once back on the coast: Point Arena Lighthouse

We checked out the bottom part of the lighthouse (below), but we were too cheap and lazy to climb to the top of the tower.

Back on the road…more beautiful scenery on Highway 1, including this tree canopy

And we made a quick stop to see Fort Ross — a former Russian fort that was active from 1812 to 1841. While active, the fort saw an interesting mixing of Native Californians, Native Alaskans, and Russians. Very cool. And we were there at the same time as a fourth grade class field trip, which was super cute to watch. 

But, by far the most interesting part of the trip was seeing another BETSY!  Look at the girl in this photograph, top right.  That’s not Betsy.  That’s someone else walking around with Betsy’s face and body and lazy sense of style. How dare she! 🙂

Here are some shots of the fort. Kinda interesting, kinda meh.

 

After a full day of driving, we finally arrived at Skip and Cindy’s house in Stockton, where we’d stay for the next few days.

Here’s Mom & Bob’s house:

And here’s where Jac learned to cook — L’Auberge.  Having grown up in Orange County, I didn’t expect to be phased by a “nice restaurant.”  But…this place was beautiful and more than a little intimidating.  Wow!!

After Napa, we drove around charming nearby Yountville and then visited Jac’s favorite winery for a wine tasting. 

I ended up buying a case. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Wonder why? 🙂  Then, back in Stockton, we went out to sushi with Skip and Cindy:

Day 9-10
The long drive home
En route home, we drove around very cool Sacramento:

…looking for Jac’s grandparents’ house.  The neighborhood was full of large, historic, beautiful homes.  Unfortunately, we never found the exact house. Either it has been modified too much to recognize, or Jac’s recollection was too off given that he was just a little kid when he used to visit them. Bummer. 🙁

It was a long drive back, with very few stops other than a quick lunch in the beautiful Sierra Nevadas:

…and a quick overnight stay in Elko (trying to break up the long trip into two, less painful days).  We did have one last delicious Jac-made dinner:

…then got bored in the hotel room…

…and somehow ended up at a casino. [We were both calling each other’s bluff on actually wanting to go. 🙂 ]  After about 30 minutes of winning and losing and winning again, we walked away 25 cents richer.  Wooohooo!