Friday was crazy. I was serious non-productive at work. Short timer's syndrome set in about 1pm on Thursday. We shut up shop early and I was in a mad dash to get everything accomplished. Hit up NESF and got him some keys to water my plants. Then I headed home to get the place in order. I cleaned for hours and still didn't accomplish everything that I had hoped. P came by to drink while I was cleaning and helped by leaving the instructions for watering. (I'm hoping to get a picture of it because it was a great note).
Saturday morning woke up early, 6am, and packed the last of my stuff up. SK showed up around 7 and we got it all packed up. Swooped up P by 745 and we were on the road. The first bit of the journey was very uneventful. Just I-5 down to Olympia and then cuttin' through SW Washington.
Crossed the Columbia at Astoria and hit up a Costco for some supplies. The drive down the coast was very pleasant, but time consuming. We rolled into Newport around 6 and hit up the Rogue brewery. They were having their garage sale and I picked up a hoodie. P was set on getting some of their whiskey so we cruised over to their distillery and he picked up a bottle of single malt.
We got some beers and appetizers at the brew pub. Now I don't like to speak bad of Rogue, but I have to. The service was wretched. They forgot one of the things that we ordered. It took forever to get a beer. And then to top it all off the "view" from the window was of a bird shit covered awning (indoors!) and a dead bird. They really need to step up the appearance and service because it's a good spot otherwise.
Back on the road we realized that our initial goals might be unreasonable. The plan was to get to Sunset Bay St Park, which is just south of North Bend. However the sun was fading quickly and we opted to stay a bit closer to our location. Before we called it a day with the driving we hit up a little view point and I got some great sunset pics:
We ended up camping just south of Honeyman St Park in a forest service camp ground. Pretty chill spot, the place was only half full. The only down side was the occasional ATV noise. Turns out ATV'n is huge down there. We set up camp and started a fire the easy way.
Sunday we started back down the 101. The first thing we came upon was a buncha dunes. For miles we went along side them, though usually they were blocked by the forest. We stopped at the North Spit to get out, stretch our legs and take some pics:
P even stopped to pick up some litter:
So we got back on the road and made a b-line for California. There isn't much to speak of between the dunes and the Redwoods other than a fruit check point and some killer views of the ocean:
The first notable thing we ran into in California was Paul Bunyan and Babe, his blue ox. They're huge. And Paul talked. "I'm Paul Bunyan. I'm 50 feet tall and I've been wearing these same shoes for 50 years. My feet are pretty sweaty and I'm just they stink." It was a very strange sight:
It took a bit of time but we finally broke ourselves free of Bunyan's hypnotic spell but didn't make it far before we stopped again. This time to drive through a giant tree! I have to admit I wasn't too into the idea, but it was pretty cool:
Our next stop came in Crescent City. That town is full of hippies. We had to turn around in a park and they were everywhere. A couple of girls sitting in the flowers, some people running around blowing bubbles, etc. And it wasn't just in the park, they were everywhere.
As we were going through the parks we noticed a bunch of elk just chillin' by the roadside. We missed the turn initially so had to back track. Turned out to be a good thing because on the way back we saw a black bear strolling across the highway! Wasn't quick enough with the camera unfortunately. I did however catch some elk:
After we checked out the elk for a while we busted out of there and down to Eureka where we had a room reserved at the Travelodge. Now anyone who has stayed at a Travelodge knows they are the worst. However it was the only thing available that was reasonably priced. We ate dinner at Lost Coast brewing. Better service but the beer wasn't as good. Decent but not great.
After that we went over to a lil bar called the "Shanty". However not before Scott misunderstood were the brewery was and traipsed in the shadiest part of Eureka. I was surprised how seedy the whole town was to be honest. As we were about to go into the bar a group of kids wanted to buy weed from us, then they wanted to sell it to us. Go figure.
The bar was pretty chill. Talked to the bartender about some hikes and stuff. Then the place got slammed. It took forever to order a drink. The place redeemed itself when a magician showed up and did some illusions for us. Got a bit wasted and decided to call it a night.
We decided that Monday was going to be very relaxed. Woke up around 10 and checked out of the hotel. Drove south to Humboldt St Park to check out the Avenue of the Giants. Let me tell you, they were giant. HUGE. This should give you an idea:
We hit up the visitors center and discovered that the biggest trees were yet to come. We headed out to a different corner of the park and found a GIANT tree. It was insanely large. So big in fact that I had to bear hug it:
Now at this point I took over driving for the only point in the trip, but I was felt that P was going to kill us looking at the trees and not the road. We bombed back up the 101 to Elk Prairie. Which was very aptly named being as when you enter there's a giant prairie full of elk. We checked into our site and got set up for the night. It was a pretty sweet site right on the river:
This brought us to the half way marker on our journey and as such the half way point in this post. I've got some other things I need to be doing. To be continued...
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