california dreaming...

Sept. 28, 2013

This morning we enjoyed a delightful breakfast at our hotel, they even had 2 different flavours of waffles. We rolled out at about 8:45am with Crescent City pinned as our first pit stop, which was about 2 hours down the coast. We got out of the car to take a few pics of the coastline, but it was super windy and raining a bit, and the rain was all blowing and pointy, so we didn’t linger. We did stop at a few other viewpoints along the coast for photo ops, but the weather continued to be not so great.

Finally we reached the California border; I had assumed that as soon as we crossed the state line it would be sunny and beautiful and hot (not unreasonable in my mind). Low and behold, this was not the case and it continued to be cloudy and drizzly. One thing we noticed pretty much as soon as we entered California is all the roadkill. I’m not sure if it’s a case of no one cleaning it up or if Californian animals are more prone to hanging out on busy highways and waiting for cars to come by.

We have been following highway 101 all the way down the coast, and in California it passes through the Redwood National Park, where we found huge statues of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. There was a speaker somewhere with a guy talking to everyone taking pictures pretending to be Paul Bunyan, which was funny and I thought it would be the perfect job for Ben.

We found a great beach to run around on before the highway took us inland and away from the ocean. Of course we headed right to the water’s edge to see how far the waves were washing up on shore so we could get our feet wet. I guess I underestimated how far up the beach the water would reach and I couldn’t run back up the beach fast enough, so my pants got wet up to my knees. Luckily I was wearing yoga pants so they dried pretty quick. Ben thought it was pretty funny.

We continued on through Eureka (where we saw one of many little coffee stands), and headed into Humboldt Redwoods State Park. 

We opted to take the scenic route off the highway and onto the “Avenue of the Giants” (Ben thought this is where he would find his “people”, it was of course referring to the trees). It was so beautiful and the trees were amazingly huge, some of them had survived forest fires and had singed bark.

Just outside of the park, Ben pulled over so that I could take over driving for a bit. It was a little stressful since I am not very good at driving manual transmission, but I managed without incident.

 I got us all the way to Santa Rosa (about 2hrs) and then traffic was getting busier and I decided it was Ben’s turn to drive again. He drove us the rest of the way to Fairfield, where we are staying the night. We chose Fairfield because this is where the Jelly Belly factory is so we are going to do a tour tomorrow before heading back to the coast. Ben booked us a hotel room through Ebates by doing some low-ball bidding thing, and we ended up in a smoking room. Pretty nasty stuff, so we opened the window (to better hear a barking dog) and brewed a pot of coffee to create more strong smells. Our hotel is right next to a bunch of fast food restaurants so we went to a close by pizza place for dinner and sat at a booth that had its own little TV playing Despicable Me. The pizza was actually better than expected plus we have some leftover for snacking in the car tomorrow. 

tripping down the coast

West Coast Road Trip

Sept. 26, 2013

FVI is on the go again, this time adventuring down the west coast all the way to San Diego! We left Thursday afternoon after Ben got home from work and we loaded up the car. We left the house at about 3:15pm and were over the border shortly thereafter.

 Interestingly enough, the border guard couldn’t have asked fewer questions, the only thing he asked was where we were going, no follow-up questions, nothing! The last time we went across for gas he asked us if we had any guns…I think Ben told him we had a rocket launcher or something…Anyways, we headed through Bellingham and got on the I5 south to Seattle. For the most part traffic in the opposite direction was busy and we had smooth sailing, until we got closer to Seattle, then it was pretty bad. We decided to go into Seattle for dinner at The Crab Pot at Pike Place Market. 

There we enjoyed a feast of Dungeness crab, Snow Crab, mussels, clams, shrimp, sausage, corn and red potatoes. Mmmmmm, so delicious.

After dinner we had to head back up to the I5 and continue south, but first we had to make it up the steep hill from the waterfront. Of course we hit the red light on every block and Ben was freaking out because either he doesn’t know how to do a hill start in a manual transmission, or the clutch was slipping. Either way the clutch smelt like burnt rubber and Ben was upset (a very rare occurrence). We made it back to the highway and drove through Olympia and toward the coast. Ben had booked us a room at a motel in Ocean Shores, WA, which is on this little spit of land jutting out into the ocean. We got checked in just before 10pm and pretty much went right to bed.

Sept. 27, 2013

This morning we were on the road just before 9am after a continental breakfast, which included waffles. Our room also had a Keureg, which I was surprised to see since it was a cheaper place. We drove down the coast, but unfortunately the weather was rainy and dark and the sea looked angry. Not very appealing as far as exploring beaches goes, although we did drive the car onto the beach in Ocean Shores. 

On our way down the coast we passed through an area called Tokeland, to which Ben commented, “sounds like a hippy paradise”. We kept getting stuck behind either logging trucks or trucks carrying port-o-potties…              

We drove all the way down to Tillamook before stopping at the Tillamook Country Smoker Outlet, which was full of jerky and pepperoni, which of course we stocked up on for our drive. Shortly thereafter we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and watched the blocks of cheese travel around on the production line and get cut into smaller bricks and then packaged.

 We also got to taste little cubes of cheese and have a free mini ice cream cone, which was blueberry flavour and delicious. Ben also bought a t-shirt that looks like the label on a brick of cheese, so when he wears it he will look like a big cheese.

Our next stop was a random pull-out where we clambered down a super slippery clay hillside to the beach. It was really windy and the water was cold, but an adventure none the less. 

We also stopped in Otter Rock to see the “Devil’s Punchbowl”, tasted some wine at The Flying Dutchman Winery (Ben felt some sort of instinctual pull toward this winery in particular…), and had a late lunch of clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, just what we needed on a rainy day like today.

Further down the coast we made another stop at Devil’s Churn, and explored a bit and waited for the perfect moment to take a picture of the water spraying up behind us. Ben tried to blame my camera for his inability to perfectly timed picture.

I was still pretty wet out and drizzling so we didn’t spend too much time out of the car; we drove past all the dunes and it was too late in the day to visit the sea lion caves (which is OK because everyone who has been there tells me that they are really stinky).  

We stopped in a small town to steal Wifi from McDonalds and Ben booked us a hotel in North Bend, which is where we were hoping to make it to today, and we rolled in just before 8pm. We relaxed in the hot tub for a bit and then came back to our room to enjoy a nice dinner of pepperoni and cheese dip (thanks to my dear friend Alica who was sweet enough to pack us a road trip snack). Now it’s bed time as we have another long day of driving ahead of us. Today Ben didn’t make me drive at all but who knows about tomorrow…