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Friday, August 4, 2006 - We drove over the mountains into Sonoma and Santa Rosa. The road was full of sharp curves and difficult turns. Jane drove it beautifully. Santa Rosa is as they say "nothing to write home about." Looks like a typical Bay area suburb. We reached the coast at Jenner and started a fantastic drive up the Northern California Coast. |
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We stopped for lunch at a beautiful lodge, the Timber Cove Inn, overlooking the Pacific. Hal had a salad and iced tea, Jane had a BLT and Diet Coke. We then continued our drive north along the magnificent California Coast. |
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We were surprised at how desolate the Coast was. We expected it to be far more developed that it was. We guess that Califronia must have done some thing right to protect the beautiful coastline. There was also amazingly little traffic on the road in either diretion. And this was on a Friday afternoon. |
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We drove past Mendocino. It seemed to be a very quiet upper-middle class community. We thought it was going to be like East Hampton but it was more like Greenport.
We stayed at the Glass Beach Bed and Breakfast in Fort Bragg. Nice clean room - nothing special, buy certainly acceptable. Didn't see the fort. Fort Bragg appears to be a sort of lower middle class vacation area. Lots of inexpensive chain places to stay and eat. We had dinner at Silver's at the Warf. |
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We had a lovely seafood dinner while watching the Coast Guard and the local seal population. Ok, I know its hard to really see the seals, but trust us, they were there. Hal had his favorite: fried seafood platter and Jane had her favorite of fried oysters, both washed down with the local beer. For desert Hal had an Oliloliberry cobler with vanilla ice cream, which Jane readily shared. |
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| Saturday, August 5th, 2006 - Woke up the next morning to a bacon and eggs breakfast and continued the fabulous drive up the coast. Still no traffic. |
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We are now in redwood country. Amazing trees. They look like nothing else. |
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There is a "drive through" tree. But our oversized Ford Taurus was too wide to drive through the tree.
Went then continued on through the Avenue of the Giants. It is a road that is just flanked with giant redwoods. |
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Had lunch in Eureka at the Cafe Waterfront: Hal had a Reuben, Jane had a BLT with avecado. Not bad. Eureka seemed to be a small town on the Pacific that is trying to be a tourist attraction but as far as we could tell few tourists actually show up.
We continued on and stopped at a beach where there were fisherman surf fishing for ???. Hal dipped his feet in but not much more. Ice cold. Brrrrr. |
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Then on to Crescent City where we startd inland toward Grants Pass. |
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| Grants Pass was a surprise. We expected a sort of small rustic mountain place. What we got was every small town in North America. Wal*Mart and all. Tried staying at the hotel neer the boat ride we planned on for Sunday. |
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Walking back to the car from signing up for the boat tour we jaywalked. Waited for most of the traffic to pass. The last car stopped for us and the women atually apologized to US for not stopping sooner. Could never live in this place - the people are too nice. In NY she would have probaby not stopped but swerved around us in a hail of curses. Having trouble dealing with all this niceness. |
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| That motel was filled up but they sent us to the Redwood Motel which was more than suitable. Got a small suite with a jacuzzi. Couldnt get the wireless working. computer problem - internal wifi adaptor is dead - got a pcmcia wifi adaptor at where else Wal*Mart. Had dinner at a Angela's Hacienda, a local Mexican restaurant. We shared some nachos and then Hal had chiles relenos and an enchalada, Jane had a chicken flautas. Local beer to wash it all down. |
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Sunday, August 6, 2006 - The next morning we headed for our 8:45am boat ride through Hellsgatee canyon. The boats are flat bottom afairs and seat around 45 people. They have 450hp engines. They cruise on the river at about 50mph!!! |
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The boat ride was peaceful and the guide knew the local flaura, fauna and birds. Can you pick out the bald eagle in the left tree on the picture on the left. |
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The following movie shows what it is like travelling in these boats at around 50mph.
Boat Ride Movie |
Every once in awhile when the ride seemed like we were just flying along the guide would put the boat in a spin out. Look at the two movies below that show what it was like.
Spin Out Movie 1
Spin Out Movie 2 |
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We then continued on our journey to Portland stopping in Eugene for lunch. We stopped at a marketplace in that had lots of cute stores and an international food court. We each had a falaffel wrap and iced tea for Hal and Diet Coke for Jane.
We left Eugene and headed north to Portland. |
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