Redway to San Francisco, CA

Sorry for not posting anything yesterday.  We got in to San Francisco about 7:00 and since then it's just been "Miller Time"!  It's so good to see Brent and Jackie again.  We haven't seen them since November.  

I'll post pictures and more information once we get home again.  We had a long day of driving yesterday - not so much because we were so far away - but because we chose the longer route!  We stayed on Highway 101 to Leggett, CA and then got on Highway 1 and drove along the coast.  The first 10 miles or so was over the mountain and the roads were SO twisty and narrow.  I met a log truck on a curve and he was really flying through there.  Once we got over the mountain though, we were back on the beach.  It was a little foggy but man, what a sight!

Before we got to the beach though, we had a couple stops to make.  We stopped at a place called Confusion Hill that was more for kids but we had a good time.  It was one of those fun houses full of illusions.  They had some great chain saw carvings though.

                                                   It was hard to stand up straight here!

Yes, we paid another $5 to drive through this tree.  They saw that every few years they have to enlarge the tree because it keeps trying to heal itself and close up the hole.  

                                     This time I didn't scrape the side mirror on the tree!

              I'd be afraid that if I lived in this house I'd fall in the ocean while I was asleep!

                                    Big waves crashing on the rocks....my favorite thing!

                                                  A lot of our drive looked like this.

This is when I knew we were getting close!  Of course, the famous San Francisco fog made an appearance but we've seen this before when it was bright and sunny.  After 1800.2 miles, we reached our final destination.  It's been a great trip but now it's family time.  I still have some things to share and will catch up after we get home and settled.  Thanks for following us on our trip and I hope you enjoyed it too.  I'll talk to you in a few days.

Crescent City to Redway, California

Today we managed 160 miles so we are slowly but surely making our way to San Francisco.  It was real foggy this morning when we left Crescent City but, being the adventuresome type, we thought we'd stop at the beach anyway.  Even though it was foggy, the particular place we decided to stop wasn't too bad.

We had a nice walk here though.  The sand was a dark gray here.  It's been interesting how the sand is different colors in different areas.  This sand is real fine.  It doesn't stick like the Gulf sand does either.

I loaded my pictures on the computer last night before we went to eat.  We ate at a seafood place in the harbor, next to these guys.  They are the ones we could hear INSIDE our motel room!  I'm thinking the gray one in front is a seal and the others are sea lions.  The others sure didn't want him in their group!  He went over the side after I took the pictures and never did get back up on the dock.  

Back to today....We started out at the Trees of Mystery in the Redwood Forest.  We walked the trail and saw some huge, beautiful redwoods.  It's so hard to capture the massive size of these trees.  Some we saw today are listed in the Ripley's Believe It Or Not.  At the halfway point or so, we got on a gondola and rode up 1/3 of a mile to 750 feet.  It was cool looking down on the huge trees!

                                              Here's Conrad playing in one of the trees.

                                                  The trees have interesting shapes.

                    These trees are probably 200 feet tall but the pictures just can't show it.

This was taken from our gondola, either going up or coming down.  It was so cool to see these trees from the top, looking down.

Yep, that's me driving through the tree.  It seemed like a snug fit with this little car but they say all standard cars, vans and pickups can get through.  The tree is approximately 735 years old.  The opening is 7'4" wide and 9'6" high.  Very touristy, huh?

                             Conrad is standing next to part of a root from a redwood tree.

I'm having internet problems again tonight so I can't load any more pictures.  It's taken and hour and a half to get this much.  The place we are staying is in the boonies.  It's a motel/campground/RV park.  We have no cell service here.  The lady told us that sometimes Verizon will work but AT&T never does.  

Before I quit, I want to tell you that we ate lunch near Eureka, CA at the Samoa Cookhouse.  It is the last cookhouse in the west and has been serving meals for over 105 years.  The food was served family style.  They had rows of tables so you might be eating with strangers.  The food was wonderful.  Today they were serving Beef and Rice Soup, Salad, Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Corn, Baked Beans and Cake.  We really enjoyed it and they also had a lumber museum there.  

We also found another cheese factory but it wasn't near as interesting as the one in Tillamook.

After lunch we drove through the Avenue of the Giants.  It's a 31-mile drive through the Redwoods.  It was such a beautiful drive.  The worst part was that the locals drive it like maniacs!  The speed limit was 55 mph but it was almost too fast to go 40 mph.  Two vehicles that passed me were lucky they didn't hit someone head-on.  They passed on a double yellow line on a curve.  It was nerve-wracking.  We tried to pull over whenever anyone got behind us.

I'll add more pictures tomorrow night.  Right now it's bedtime for this tired girl!  Excited about seeing Brent and Jackie TOMORROW!!  Unfortunately, Brent has to work late tomorrow night but we'll spend some time with Jackie.  

Night night!

Bandon, Oregon to Crescent City, California

Another day of great adventures for us.  Today was mainly a driving day but I think we stopped at about every pull-out between Bandon and here!  We just don't want to miss anything!!

We left the motel and drove down to the beach and ate some breakfast in the car while watching the surf. It was a cold 45 degrees. Then we tackled the 129 steps down to the beach.  It wasn't foggy at that place and there was lots to look at on the beach.

                                                 Nice place for a morning walk, huh?

This is another view.  The sand was real firm.  It's much finer than the sand on the Gulf coast.

We saw more cranberry bogs here.  This one was already flooded but it looked like the cranberries were still there.  Another bog looked like it had already be harvested.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse is at Oregon's westernmost point.  It was a beautiful spot but that point catches the brunt of all Pacific storms.  Conrad estimated the wind to be about 40 mph (and those of you who know him know that he is a pretty good meteorologist!). I had a hard time holding the camera still to take pictures!

                                                             See how windy it is?

Then it was on to Port Orford.  It was an interesting little town.  It was still awfully windy but nothing like up at the lighthouse.  We spent a little time here at the harbor.

This was a really hard picture to get but the little bit of white in the water is a whale blowing!  We couldn't catch him when he was actually on top of the water but we saw him surface several times!!

                                                   One of many stops along the coast.

                                                     And another stop......

We are parked on the jetty here on the Rogue River that runs into the Pacific.  It is famous for fishing.  We watched the fishermen here while we ate our lunch in the car.  It was awfully windy here and the gulls were hanging out beside our car, waiting for crumbs!  I guess they're used to people eating there.  It was so windy that when they tried to walked, the wind blew them sideways!  It was fun to watch.  We drove out to the end of this long jetty then decided maybe we couldn't turn around out there.  So......I backed up all the way!  It was a little scary and there were huge pot holes.  Luckily, this little Corolla we're driving didn't hit bottom!

This is the I.L. Patterson Memorial Bridge over the Rogue River in Gold Beach, OR.  It was the first bridge in the country to be built with prestressed concrete in 1931.  You know how much I love bridges and we've seen a lot of them on this trip.  Of course, my favorite is still the Brooklyn Bridge!

                                                              Cape Sebastian

                                                              I could look at this all day!

                                               What great views and no fog to speak of!  

      This one is called Arch Rock (for obvious reasons) at Samuel Boardman State Park.

The big rock in the center is the largest island along the Oregon coast and is called Bird Island. Breeding takes place here for a variety of birds, including tufted puffins.  It was foggier when we got there but it kept going away little by little.

So, here we are in California!  We are checked in our motel in Crescent City, about a block or so away from the harbor.  We can hear the fog horn and the sea lions are barking up a storm!  We ate dinner tonight at a restaurant at the harbor and it was so good.  I guess we'll have to listen to the sea lions all night but my guess is we're so tired, we'll never know they're there!!

Tomorrow we will start with the different redwood areas.  I think there are 3 parks.  In just two days we'll be in San Francisco and get to see Brent and Jackie!  We haven't seen them since November and it's been too long.  

So good-night for now and check back tomorrow.

Newport to Bandon, Oregon

I am dead tired tonight and instead of telling you what we've done, I'm just going to post some pictures.  There isn't much to say anyway.  We mostly stopped at different beaches.  My two favorite stops were at Devil's Churn and Cook's Chasm.  We were up on the bluff, overlooking these two places.  The waves were big and they came in these small places roaring!  

                                The Devil's Churn - the picture really doesn't do it justice!

This is Cook's Chasm - the water spouted out of the top every time a wave hit.  They say it was a cave that the top opened up over time from the heavy waves.

We also walked on a couple beaches while the tide was out.  It was sort of foggy so the pictures weren't real good but that never stopped me from taking them!

You can see the water way out there and we walked about 45 minutes here.  They said it was a good place to find agates but, of course, we didn't find any.  At least I didn't see any rocks with a sign that said "Pick me up!  I'm an agate!"

Doesn't this look like a picture you'd find in your Sunday School class?  This was at the same beach as above.

                                                                This is at Seal Rock.

                                                                 A beautiful beach

                                                        The Oregon Sand Dunes

                                                       The Umpqua River Lighthouse

Inside the triangle you can see brown floats.  This is an oyster farm and the floats support ropes that the oysters are attached to.  It takes them 2 to 4 years to mature.  The water temperature is 51 degrees and is 80% salt water and 20% fresh water.  We saw a video about oyster cultivation at their office (Umpqua Aquaculture) and usually you can see the shuckers at work. They don't work one day a week because they have to totally clean everything.  Of course, Tuesday is their cleaning day!  Anyway, the video was great!

This is the Coquille River Lighthouse.  The tide was out while we were here so we walked on the beach and I ventured a little too far.  I was standing on a rock and thought I was far enough from the water - WRONG!  The water came up over my shoes and about 6" up my jeans!  It stayed a long time (I thought) and then receded and I was able to go back to Conrad.  He was watching all this but didn't have the camera with him.  So, that was my little adventure for the day.

It was a great day and we're looking forward to tomorrow.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures.  I'm going to bed now

Nehalem to Newport, Oregon

Today we saw a lot of fog and started the day at 47 degrees.  We had to use the heat at the motel last night.  It only got up to 61 today but at times it was sunny.

Our first stop was in Tillamook at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  We got to watch the production line.  It was just like on "How It's Made".  I wish it had been a guided tour instead of self-guided because we had so many questions.  Guess that's something I'll have to research once we get home.  We spent about an hour there and then got to sample some of the cheese.  We bought some to have for our lunches. 

The next stop was the Tillamook Air Museum.  That stop was more for Conrad than for me but it was one of the bases for the blimps during WWII.  The place was huge and when I took Conrad's picture in front by the door, he looked so tiny!

 

See Conrad to the left of the door?

 

The rest of our day was spent stopping at different beaches along the way and we had gorgeous views!  One of the things I wanted to see were huge waves crashing on the huge rocks and we saw that several times.  A couple of the places we stopped, we got to watch the surfers.  Most of the places we saw from on top of the bluffs but one place we got to hike to the beach and walk along the tide pools.  The surfers were there and they didn't have to go out very far to catch the waves.

 

One of the surfers at Cape Kiwanda caught a wave!

 

One of my favorite stops was at Boiler Bay State Wayside where the waves were really huge!  We were high on the bluff above the water and some of the spray seemed to be almost as high as where we were!  I could have stood there all day, just watching the water.  It is so mesmerizing!

I love this view!

 

We also saw some clam diggers working.  We stopped and watched them for awhile.

 

 

Our last stop for the day was at Otter Rock and Devil's Punchbowl, just north of Newport, where we are spending the night.  The waves here seemed to be even bigger than the last stop.  A local man was also there and told us about the whales and we watched them for awhile.  Sorry, no pictures of them.  They were too far out and too fast to catch.  Two things I wanted to really see were huge waves crashing on the rocks and also whales and I got to see both today! 

                                                           Devil's Punchbowl

 

                                                  The calmer side of the cape

 

When we got to Newport, we headed down to the waterfront on the bay to see what was going on and find a place to eat dinner.  We had some great, fresh seafood.  We walked to one of the wharfs and saw the sea lions.  We also watched some guys catching crabs.

The poor little guy on the bottom kept trying to get on the same raft as the others but they wouldn't let him on.  They'd bark and bark at him and he'd bark back then swim underwater and try again.  We watched for quite awhile and the poor little fellow never did get on.

 

It's about bedtime here since we have to hit the road early.  We try to leave about the time it gets light.  We don't want to waste the daylight!  Tomorrow we will continue down the coast. It seems each day we see better stuff.  I sure don't know how it could get much better than this!