the lost coast and found adventure

Day: 27

Mileage: 4500

The great thing about road trips is that sometimes places will surprise you. Take, for example, Oakland. I knew nothing about Oakland before going there, really, but I had the general feeling that Oakland was, well, the way I found much of San Francisco to be. And I’m sure parts of it are. However, on our way out of San Francisco we met up with Alex’s friend Molly who is living in Oakland with her boyfriend Nate on a sailboat. My impression of Oakland now is that it’s really cool and my impression of living on a sailboat is that I want to do it.

The following morning, Chloe and Alex hit the road, heading back to Minneapolis with a pit stop in Yellowstone, and the road trip was officially me, Curt and the Outback once again. I really enjoy hanging out with my sister - she’s a pretty cool girl - and her boyfriend’s pretty cool as well, so it was a little sad to see them go. Plus, the previous week had marked the California vacation my family had been planning on taking for 10 years or so.

It being just us again, we hit up two vineyards on the way out of wine country to drown our sorrows. Not really. But we did stop at two vineyards - Benziger Family Winery and their sister winery, Imagery. Curt and I are really more beer people than wine people, but even if you can’t tell wine from grape juice the vineyards are so beautiful, it’s totally worth it. And the wine was, not surprisingly, really freaking good. (Not being a wine connoisseur, I’m afraid I can’t give you a much better description than that. Wait until I get to Seattle, though. I’ll write more about coffee than you’ll want to read. Promise.)

To balance out our high class wine experience, we brought ourselves back down with our first (and probably only) fast food stop of the trip. Plus, we were really hungry. They don’t feed you at the vineyards. Not unless you count those miniature breadstick things, I guess. But I think those are just to cleanse the palate and you might get a weird look from someone if you started snacking on them. Also, Curt says that In-N-Out Burger is a big West Coast thing and they make all their french fries fresh, so it’s really more of a cultural experience than a breaking of our no fast food rule.

That night we camped at Salt Point State Park and found a peacock wandering by our campsite the next morning. I was both thrilled to add peacocks to our list of wild animals encountered on the trip and surprised that peacocks were native to California. Who knew? That is until the peacock was way too comfortable with Curt taking his picture from about eight inches away and the camp host told us that peacocks are raised by the resort across the road.

Next stops were Mendocino and Fort Bragg. Mendocino is a cool little town with some nice art galleries, decent cafes and friendly people. If you need a good little downtown area to walk around (say you’re coming from San Francisco and don’t want to have to worry about what’s around the corner, for example). Mendocino’s a great place to do it. Fort Bragg isn’t bad either. But what you actually need to see if you happen to be in the area is Glass Beach. Heading north out of Fort Bragg, turn left at the Denny’s (as the nice old man in the sea glass museum instructed us) and you’ll come upon a pleasant but ordinary looking state beach. Even walking out onto it, it seems no more interesting than any of the countless other beaches along the coast. Until you crouch down, that is, and realize that there’s so much sea glass on the beach that if you wanted to take some of it home with you, it might make more sense to scoop up a handful and pick out the rocks and sand.

This beach exists the way it does apparently because the area used to be a big dumping ground for glass. Which is kind of awful, actually. But if anything beautiful ever came from something ugly, it’s sea glass. And a whole beach of it is something to see. Plus, if you do choose to take a handful of it home, all you’re really doing is participating in beach clean up.

And a good deed like beach clean up deserves a reward - so we took ourselves to the Lost Coast (the chunk of coast where the Pacific Highway veers inland because the coast gets even curvier and crazier than usual). Then there’s that no good deed goes unpunished thing - so the campsite we ended up at was along a creek (beautiful) with a heavy supply of mosquitos (not so beautiful), the first we’d experienced in California. But we are Minnesotans after all, so a few mosquitos don’t ruin a camping experience. Nor do they deter Curt from cooking a full on meal over the campfire. It turned out to be his best yet. Pesto pasta with mushrooms, potatoes, green beens and parmesan.

Here’s what I was doing:

Girls, marry a guy who can (and likes to) cook.

A travel tip I forgot to mention earlier: If you’re going to sleep in the car because it’s so windy you think you might blow away in your sleep and wake up in Nebraska (scary!), and you lock all your food in the car top carrier - having learned your lesson with leaving anything resembling food outside - don’t be surprised if you are awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of a raccoon on your moon roof desperately trying to figure out how to get that car topper open.

The Lost Coast is (shocker!) not exactly easy to get to; the roads are so twisted I was nauseous most of the way there and had to take a little breather at the drive-thru tree tourist trap (in case you’re wondering, a Subaru Outback with a roof rack is too tall to actually drive through it). But by the time we got to our campsite (after I laid down, settled my stomach and swatted a few mosquitos), I was really glad we were there. After dinner, we washed our dishes in the stream like real campers and the next morning we took a great hike right from our campsite.

So, the Lost Coast is definitely something I would recommend. However, if you could find a way to take a helicopter there, I would recommend that as well. If we thought we were crazy for taking the road we took into the Lost Coast, then we should be committed for the one we took out of it. Sure, the sign said King’s Peak Road is narrow and windy, but we but we thought nothing of it, seeing as since we entered California and got on Highway 1, we’ve been driving on narrow, windy roads pretty much exclusively. I propose this rewrite of the sign regarding King’s Peak Road, and the California State Parks board should consider itself more than welcome to post it:

King’s Peak Road, while a two-way street, is rarely wide enough for more than one car to pass and often has a width more suitable for something like a scooter or a mule. Only if the mule is sturdy and has excellent balance, though, since much of the road has a mountain wall on one side and a quickly descending mountainside on the other. (Does it need to be mentioned that there are no guard rails?) Don’t waste time wondering what might happen if a vehicle comes at you from the opposite direction. It won’t do you any good and the potential scenarios will not help your nerves. On the plus side, King’s Peak Road won’t make you quite as nauseous as Highway 1, since, while it is constructed like a horizontal roller coaster, it is impossible to drive very quickly on, especially since you have to literally drive across a creek some four or five times along the way.

Having survived our trip out of the Lost Coast, we reentered society in the direction of Eureka (as in ‘Eureka! King’s Peak Road is a death trap but we’re alive!’) There, we came to the conclusion that there had not been enough alcohol related destinations in California and stopped at the Lost Coast Brewery for dinner. (No comparison to Sierra Nevada, in my opinion, but worth a visit.)

After having stayed with her brother in LA and her mom in Chico, it was only appropriate to stay with my cousin Teresa and her husband Greg while we were in their territory of California, just north of Eureka. Teresa and Greg are newlyweds and they are both environmental engineers, which translates to really smart people who are putting their energy into saving the world. I hadn’t seen Teresa for a full decade, so I felt really lucky to be able to spend some time with her, even if it was brief.

The next day was the first day of the trip that Curt and I really got on each other’s nerves. I wanted to drive five miles in the wrong direction for wifi and Curt wanted to push on. Then we couldn’t agree on where to stay. Etc, etc. We’ll call it the 27 day itch. But I have to say that if you are spending 24 hours a day with someone driving across the country and you only really annoy each other once every 27 days, then you’re doing pretty well. We found camping that night at a mediocre campground next to the best beach for driftwood that I’ve ever been to. We forgot our petty arguments over filling up our pockets with driftwood pieces that we imagine will someday be the handles of our as-now-nonexistent cabinets and doors.

Our last hurrah in California was a 10 mile hike along the James Irvine trail to Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek. Several people in California recommended Prairie Creek and Fern Canyon to us and I will now repeat it. Go to Prairie Creek and Fern Canyon. This is the area of California where they filmed Jurassic Park, and once you’re there you’ll understand why. You may see wild elk on your way in, but once you’re hiking a trail, you’ll expect to see a triceratops come barreling around the corner. The redwoods make you feel like you’re two inches tall (in a positive way, I promise) and Fern Canyon is a natural playground. It’s perfect. Go there.