Good evening friends. I've come to realize writing on a road trip is a different experience than other trips I've been on. For one, lots of the pictures are taken out of car windows so sorry in advance. And also, I can't write any during the day as we drive along, because there's been lots of curly roads and that equals queasy stomach if I stop looking out of the window. This means I have to write everything after a very long day (...of sitting) and the lazy factor goes up a little, so I'll rely on pictures more than my words to show our progress. That's just the way it is.
After a night in Willits, California we set off early for day three of the trip. And look, we even beat the sun. And, well, everyone else in the city. When I took this picture we had made it through the small town and back onto the 101, and it's about 7:30am. It was steadily raining and very dark still, and it stayed about this dark for another hour. The low clouds made it darker for longer since we went through some mountainous regions, which was kind of cool for my Arizona point of view. I was just happy to be cold and wet on the walk to the car from the hotel room.
See, about 8:30am.
Our breakfast stop was about an hour out: Garberville! All right, not the most exciting and cool sounding name, but it did have one of the best cafes I've ever eaten at.
A fantastic array of organic yummy homemade everything: Because California.
We were full till dinnertime.
It looks like a normal fruit dish, but it was so much more. (blackberries=best I've tasted)
Wow the pictures make it look small. It was not small.
Also no I'm not apologizing to be one of those people who takes pictures of their food! :) Helps me remember their taste.
After this fulfilling breakfast, we continued down the 101 a few miles and reached the turn off 30 mile long side road of the Avenue of the Giants. I felt very fantasy-book like every time I spotted that sign.
(Also, Eureka! Unfortunately it wasn't like the TV show, or maybe they just hid the cool scientific experiments way too well.)
As we drove down the road, the trees started to get bigger.......or perhaps we started to get smaller....
Yep, I definitely shrunk down to hobbit-sized.
Looking up, I couldn't see the sky or sun, just more tree trunk! (This may be turning into a tall tale.) (Unnecessary puns, but couldn't help it.)
A giant walked by and stepped on this one, thankfully I ran out of the way fast enough to avoid getting squashed. Otherwise this picture would look very different.
I found an opening to the Upside Down but thankfully I didn't hear any voices, and managed to stay on this side. The doorway was pretty big though, probably about 10 feet high. Monsters could have come right out of there at any moment.
This natural shape looks rather face-like. In a few different points of view.
There's some perspective finally, with the biggest ones we pulled over for. Good thing I wore a colorful jacket.
If you zoom, you can see this tree has been around since about 900AD.
And that's it. This took a couple hours since we stopped a lot to get out and look around and hug trees, but we planned to do just that and timed accordingly. I wouldn't mind going back to camp there.
Now we approached Eureka and Arcata, California. This are also large trees, but I think they're to help break tsunamis. Still impressive.
We shopped at two bookstores in town. One was called Northern Books and it was pretty cool, but new books only so it lacked that musty smell I seek out. Thankfully we found this one across the street.
The perfect musty silent messy multi storied used bookstore. My find: A hardcover copy of The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. He's on the bestseller right now for his second novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, which I hope to read soon.
We continued along the 101 (Pacific Coast Highway) for the remainder of the day. We've been lucky to miss the rest of the rain for the day, which allowed us beautiful views like this along the drive, for hours on end.
Made it to Oregon! One more state to go....
We stopped for the night in Reedsport, Oregon. I think with tomorrow's questionable weather and routing we will have to turn inland toward Portland and then Seattle. Goodbye coast, hello again big cities.
Per tradition though, here's our scrumptious food for dinner at Harbor Lights. It was recommended to us by the hotel as 'the' place to go and they were completely right.
In fact, everyone in town seemed to be eating in the small diner. Therefore, no more empty tables. The waitress asked a couple seated at a bigger table if they didn't mind sharing with us road-wary newcomers. Thankfully they said of course, and we sat down next to them. This turned into a delightful evening of politicking and bookstore-story sharing and I hope we have the pleasure of running into them again sometime. (Guys, I'll be at Village books next time you venture up from San Francisco!)
Miles today: 378 (fewer because of slower roads but cooler views)
Cheers.
