The Travels of Pete and Amber

Late last night we arrived at our lodgings (the Buckeye Tree Lodge in Three Rivers, CA) just south of Sequoia National Park. The office was closed by the time we got there, but we were nonetheless greeted at the door to our room by the official Wolf-Spider Welcoming Committee. I didn’t get a picture, which I’m confident that at least my mom is happy about. I have to admit that a 2 1/2″ spider barreling down the outside wall was a bit shocking at 2am. It was just one, but he was quite the specimen. This morning the office staff indicated that even though the spiders haven’t quite made it to the rank of employee, they are a pretty common sight. 🙂

The Buckeye Tree Lodge was, yet again, a very nice place to stay with beautiful scenery surrounding it. It is right on the banks of the Keowah River. Some of the rocks in the river are over ten feet tall. If you’re ever in this area, I’d highly recommend staying here.

Sequoia National Park is amazing. I really didn’t expect the variety of terrain there at all. From most high vantage points, you can look out in any direction and your field of view would likely contain high grasslands, forest, rocky crags and scrub. Really interesting. The mountains here are just as full of majesty as those in Tennessee, but they seem just a bit more interesting. We also went to tour the Crystal Cave today. This cave is also unique among the ones I’ve been in because it has distinctly flat ceilings – something I either have never seen or at least paid attention to. The tour wasn’t as long as I thought it would be, but still interesting nonetheless. It must be the hermit (or maybe the desire to hibernate through the winter) in me, but I’ve always found caves cozy and inviting.

The mountains are one thing, but the trees are entirely another. Once again, pictures just don’t do these things justice. Seriously. The Sentinel tree (25-ish feet in diameter) at the Giant Forest Museum is an impressive specimen, but they get bigger. In the Giant Forest Grove there is a set of two trees that grew together that they now call “Ed by Ned.” This pair that seems at the base to have merged into one is over 34 feet in width – more of an ellipse for obvious reasons. General Sherman was our last stop for the first day and it is a truly monstrous tree. This tree is almost 33 feet in diameter at the base with its largest branch – yes, branch – being 6.8 feet in diameter. That’s a branch larger in diameter than most of the largest trees in any of the forests that I’ve ever been in. (That’s Amber lying on the ground in the footprint of Ed by Ned.) I love how the color of these trees stands out so much in a forest in the afternoon light.

More of Sequoia and Kings Canyon in the next post!

Our time in San Francisco was too little to do all that we wanted to in addition to what we needed to do, but was good despite that fact. I had lots of stuff going on in relation to my good friend’s wedding (congrats Isaac and Maggie!) and we had to schedule our time to get the most out of it that we could.

Thursday evening’s drive to our hotel in the Richmond-Berkeley area was a great introduction to SF traffic. This and nearly every other encounter with driving or traffic in general reminded me why big cities are not for me. We had to cross the Richmond bridge from US 101 in the west and this took almost 45 minutes. This should not be a 45-minute affair. This was only the beginning, but I’ll spare you the rest of the detail. [end of traffic-related rants for this post]

Friday morning Amber and I went walking around the downtown area of SF proper and we saw (not really more than “saw” as in “looked at” due to time constraints) Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf and then we rode a cable car back to Market Street where we parked for $20. [read with some bitterness; official end of traffic-related rants]

Friday evening was for bachelor party shenanigans which were quite fun, though ran late into the night. Amber looked around at some specific things to do in the city and made a good plan for Saturday.

On Saturday, we again drove into the city, risking life and limb. [not quite done with the traffic comments yet, I guess] We started out at Fisherman’s Wharf since that was a big recommendation that everyone had for us. We saw (again, “looked at”) a couple of old (1880’s and 90’s) restored ships along with the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, a WWII Liberty Ship at the SF Maritime National Historical Park and walked from there over to Pier 39 to see the sea lions, shops and other stuff.

Continuing to walk around the Embarcadero led us to the landing for Alcatraz cruises. We weren’t able to get tickets on the days we were going to be in SF, but the exhibits at the landing were pretty interesting. We also got some long views of the island itself from Pier 39, including this one in which I was apparently photo-bombed by a seagull. I always knew these guys were mischievous.

We were going to see a few things downtown, but the building we wanted to see that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was closed (seemingly permanently) and the block around City Hall which included the main Public Library was taped off with police tape because of the crazy guy at City Hall that day. We got plenty of walking in, but that wasn’t really the end goal. We rode another cable car back to Fisherman’s Wharf where we had dinner at Pier 45. Once again, crab was on the menu for me. 🙂

Sunday was pretty much filled with wedding stuff. The ceremony was really nice and the reception was fun too. The Rockefeller Lodge did a really nice job with the food and it was a really nice venue all around.

On Monday, we looked around some more in the city: saw some parts of Golden Gate Park, saw the Golden Gate Bridge and went to the visitor center there then saw the “Painted Ladies” and the extremely steep and curvy parts of Lombard Street. In the Golden Gate Park, we saw the Dutch Windmill, took a walk around one of the lakes and lucked into a guided tour of the Japanese Tea Garden.

Aside from the traffic, it was a good time, however we could have easily spent at least a day more there. On to more big trees!

p.s. The traffic is awful. 🙂

The sunrise over Tomales Bay was beautiful and Motel Inverness was too. Their property extends right to the waters of Tomales Bay and they have a little boardwalk that goes out almost to the water.

Today we went out on the Point Reyes National Seashore to see what was there. As it turns out, there really isn’t a whole lot outside of a lighthouse, some hiking and beaches, and lots of wide-open space occupied by cattle ranches. There are some sights to see including lots of windswept coastline and some nice views over Drakes Bay and looking north toward the entrance to Tomales Bay, and also the historic Pierce Point ranch.

We went out to see the lighthouse, but as today was Thursday, it was closed, which I didn’t previously realize was the case. Oh well. We got to see it from a distance. It’s precariously perched on what appears to be the edge of the world. Water is all around and the wind from of the ocean is constant. Out toward the lighthouse, all of the trees are swept back toward the land because of the wind – not exactly comfortably breezy. The effects of the wind even show in the rocks – the rounded pits in this rock above the lighthouse shows this well.

The wind is so great out on the point that the only leafy plant that I noticed was this little guy hanging on for dear life to this big rock. The only other plant life that I noticed, aside from grasses, were mosses and these red alga in the last picture above. One of the signs indicated that a lightkeeper’s wife once tried to plant a vegetable garden, but the wind even blew the carrots away once they sprouted. I’d believe it. As my dad would say, it’s too windy to haul rocks.

Overlooking Drake’s Bay, there was a spot where you could see an area where seals congregate, though the specified vantage point put you more than probably 300 yards away, so we couldn’t really see much, but you can see some heads bobbing up above the water here and you can identify a lot of them on the beach if you look closely. Drake’s bay is where Sir Francis Drake came ashore after basically a pirate raid on another ship and made contact with the Miwok people. Interesting history and also interesting terrain – I really like the almost-white cliffs that surround the bay. Off in the distance you can see one of the many ranches on Point Reyes perched atop a cliff.

Speaking of ranches, this is what the typical ranch out on this peninsula looks like. It doesn’t look like there is much for the cows to eat and the farmers certainly do supplement with a lot of hay, but they survive somehow. I don’t have a picture of it, but there were huge stacks that probably almost occupied the volume of half of one of these large dairy barns of large square hay bales! I will leave you with this word from our non-sponsor: Good cheese comes from happy cows and happy cows come from California. 🙂

First, I have to say that aside from the awful wireless coverage in our room at the very end of the building, our stay at the Beachcomber Motel was all I had hoped for. This hotel is right on the beach. This was the view directly out our back glass door and then looking back toward the hotel from the foot bridge adjacent.

Awesome. Also awesome – our breakfast. I didn’t get any pictures of it because it wasn’t really that spectacular to look at and, who wants pictures of food? Ok, me, but I digress. Eggheads Cafe was quite possibly the most expensive breakfast I have ever purchased, but well worth it. I had an omelet with crab meat and cheese, some really great fried potatoes and some toast. For those of you who aren’t interested in shellfish or seafood, I’m sorry. You’re missing out. Fresh crab (caught daily in Fort Bragg) plus eggs and cheese is just great. And the orange juice – oh, the orange juice. Fresh-squeezed Valencia orange juice. My mouth is watering again. Amber’s pancakes were quite good as well and she also had orange juice.

On the agenda for today was to visit the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens. It’s a really nice place with a mixture of well-manicured gardens with plants of all types, a “natural” area which is mostly just labels on many coastal plants and an area where they grow vegetables for donation to a local food bank – they donated over 7,000 pounds last year! This time of year their fuchsia and dahlia collections are especially nice.

After this visit, we had another interesting drive along CA-1 down to Motel Inverness where we are staying tonight. This little place is in between Inverness Park and Inverness on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. It’s a clean and welcoming place with beautiful views out across Tomales Bay, upon which it sits.

One thing we stopped and saw along the way was the Point Arena Lighthouse. Here are some pics from that stop and some of the drive down. The panorama at bottom (sort of) shows how the road climbs down a valley and back out of it. This is typical on Route 1.

Last night we stayed at The Scotia Inn¹ in Scotia, CA. The rooms are a bit dated, but it was a nice place and an interesting building. The place was built in 1923 in the small town of Scotia to house Pacific Lumber Company workers, guests and tourists. Below are some photos of the lobby.

On the agenda for today was to drive along the Avenue of the Giants to see more of the coast redwoods and then make our way down to Fort Bragg. Once we got on State Route 1, the driving got a lot more interesting. That is the curviest road I’ve ever been on and, in some cases, appears as though you could just drive into the ocean if you make just the slightest wrong move – especially considering there are no guardrails in many of the places you’d expect to see them. Driving slowly enough, though, should keep you safe.

Once again, the old-growth redwoods are just unbelievably huge! I really can’t stress that enough. These photos below aren’t really that great, but they serve a purpose. The second photo gives a good comparison between the sizes of “normal” trees in one of these forests versus the giant, dark lines of the redwoods. The third is just a couple of guys who had climbed up on a stump and when someone walking by asked what they were doing, their response was “Oh, just moving into my new apartment.” Hearty laughter ensued.

The photo captioned “Eye-Level” is actually what I saw at eye-level standing in front of one of these things that had fallen. This particular tree, through some crude estimates obtained from counting paces along it, appears to have been about 240 feet tall! One of the “smaller” trees that had fallen in this forest had had a quarter cut out of it to make a fairly comfortable bench. These forests are just beautiful in so many ways.

Speaking of huge, amazing things: the Pacific is also pretty huge and amazing too! After a rather harrowing drive along the Shoreline Highway (CA-1) with more curves than probably even tens of feet of straight road, this is what we were greeted with. As we drove along, we encountered more and more similarly breathtaking views.

Tonight we’re staying at the Beachcomber Motel in Fort Bragg. This is a view out our hotel’s back door. Hopefully I’ll be able to post more tomorrow. Mendocino, Sonoma and West Marin counties, here we come!

I don’t have any decent panorama material at the moment, but here are some nice sunset pics.

Footnotes

1. As of 2019-02-19 The Scotia Inn is closed. See the Redwood Times article.

Today was a really pretty day for pictures and driving. The views started off quickly with a nice one over the valley just north of Redding from State Route 300. While here, I turned around and snapped a few pictures of this hillside which illustrates perfectly what I always envisioned California just outside of cities looks like – scrubby hills with some trees poking up out of the scrub. I don’t know what these shrubs are, but they are absolutely everywhere; it seems as though they might be an invasive species. They’re kind of pretty and kind of strange-looking at the same time.

Just down the hill from this vantage point, we came to Whiskeytown Lake which is a hydroelectric reservoir. It’s a very pretty lake in any case and with the mountain (Shasta Bally) in the background, it’s quite scenic.

The rest of the drive on 299 offered quite a variety of terrain and plant life. We had to be escorted through a few construction zones that were rather long and potentially treacherous. We encountered lots of little towns, probably that got their start in mining or logging, many of which were no more than settlements (populations in the low- to mid-three-digits).

Some of the scenes we saw I really wouldn’t have guessed were in California if I had seen them in a book or magazine, such as the river photos above and the panorama of the high grasslands below.

Once we got off of 299, we took US-101 north to Orick to see the Redwoods National Park. The Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor’s Center is a really nice place that’s right on the beach. We went out to see what we could see of the Pacific Ocean and almost got attacked by a deadly sneaker wave, but before it could I caught it  with my cat-like reflexes. (Kidding on all counts, though we did just about get wet and had to do some quick backing up.) The sand was really rocky and gray, which I didn’t expect. Interesting to say the least. Here are a couple of beach pictures from later as well.

P.S. The fog here is amazing, primarily because along the coast it seems to be persistent. It sounds silly to say that, but it’s true! Look at the last image above. That’s not just haze, not smoke; it’s fog! It’s there most of the day!

After looking at the beach, we drove up to the Lady Bird Johnson Grove in Redwoods National park to see some coast redwoods. If you’ve never seen them in person, you can’t truly understand just how big they are. They are seriously huge – awe-inspiring. Pictures don’t do them justice, but here are a few anyway. Even though I’m writing this on our third day of the trip, my wife is (I’m sure) tired of hearing me say “wow”. More “wow” to come later. Enjoy!

We made it to California! My first two airline flights were pretty uneventful, really, and I’m quite happy about that. The only thing I’m remotely disappointed about the flights is that on the one from Chicago to Sacramento, my camera battery died before we got to the Rockies. My other battery was stowed in my carry-on but it seemed like a better plan not to disturb the two sleeping women between me and the aisle, one of them being my wife. I have some pretty ugly smart phone pictures from there on, but they aren’t nearly as nice as my camera takes.

I knew we lived in a big, wide country, but this becomes really obvious when you’re traveling at 500mph at around 7 miles above the surface. The skies were pretty overcast over Columbus and much of western Ohio, but things cleared up over Indiana and Illinois so we could actually see the ground.

Here are some pics from the first flight to Chicago:

And the second flight to Sacramento:

I haven’t pulled the pictures off of my phone yet of the rest of the trip, but mostly they are terrible. We saw some interesting cliff faces with visible layers in the rock formations. I believe I’ve identified a few of the lakes we flew over as well – Utah lake around Provo, UT with the salt flats to its west (and possibly the lower shore of Great Salt Lake, not totally sure on that), definitely Lake Tahoe (we flew directly over it – insanely deep-blue water) and other features. Hopefully we’ll fly back over this area on the way to Denver and I’ll have my camera batteries on my person.

After we got to Sacramento, I don’t have many pictures of our drive, which is unfortunate at best. There weren’t many (safe) places to pull off of I-5 going north toward Redding with a good enough vantage point to capture what I wanted to. Most of what we saw in the first 3/4 of the drive were miles and miles of wheat, corn and other crop fields as well as more miles and miles of tree orchards and groves of various types. Walnuts, olives, pecans and apples were just some of them we can remember. To say that a lot of food comes from this area is the understatement of the year. We drove off on a little road through a field toward a big walnut orchard (grove?, dunno) and I took a few pictures which made this panorama.

Up next: Pacific Ocean and Big, Tall Trees!