Travel Blog - Rest of September
9/11/07
I waited around for the comics store to open without realizing it wasn't a comics store. I had seen the previous night that it was a games store, and had thought that it had become a games store in addition to a comics store, but I was wrong. It was just a game store now. Which is cool that there was a gaming store near Laurel's, but it was not what I wanted at that moment.
So I drove down to Morro Bay, taking the coastal highway after I got to Monterey. It was a pleasant drive, but obviously not the most efficient way to get to my destination. When I got into Morro Bay, I rented a room in a motel called the Fireside Inn, with each room having this weird fake fireplace thing. Dad called later and wondered why I didn't let him know I had made it into town. I had assumed that he had a reason for telling me to contact him Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night, since I had a shorter drive than he did. It was only four and a half hours taking the slow and curvy coastal route. But oh well.
The next day I met Dad and Gilbert for breakfast. Bert seems like a real nice guy. The place we had breakfast didn't serve french toast, so I ended up only having a blueberry muffin and orange juice. We then went and got some sandwiches and other stuff from a store and headed off to go sailing. It took a while to get the ship ready, but eventually we got out to sea. Unfortunately, the winds were very slow.
So I found out I do get seasick. Good to know. I was doing fine when Bert asked if I wanted my Cokes. I initially said no, but when Dad asked for one, I changed my mind. After drinking the Coke, I started to feel not as well. At this point, Dad said that a full stomach can help offset seasickness. I tried to eat my sandwich, but after taking the first bite, knew that I would not be able to. I put the sandwich aside and a few minutes later, threw up. At some point, Bert mentioned that acidic things help promote seasickness. That would have been good to know before drinking the orange juice and especially the Coke. So I lied down for the rest of the voyage, which helped, but even so towards the end, I got sick again.
On the way out of the Bay, I saw a pair of dolphins in a region of foam right outside the mouth. We also saw quite a number of sea lions. Some we saw moving in groups through the water, jumping out periodically, similar to dolphins (I think its called saltation). Later I even thought I saw one jump straight up without forward motion.
I felt better once we reached the still water of the harbor, and along with Dad and Bruno, slept on the boat the next two nights. However, when Dad and Bert went out the next day, I chose not to go. Even though it was probably true that if I ate more and avoided Cokes (along with faster winds moving the ship better) I might not have gotten sick, especially if we had gotten some dramamine ahead of time, I didn't want to risk it. Who wants to get sick on their birthday?
It was a pretty typical birthday for me. Dad said happy birthday. Bert said it as well when he was reminded, but that's ok since he'd only met me the day before. And Aaron sent a text message and an email. And that was it. Instead of going out on the boat, I used Bert's kayak and bummed around the harbor. I was surprised how shallow some wide expanses of the bay really were (away from where the boats were moored obviously). It was low tide when I was out, and there were places where I was hitting bottom with my oars. I thought that tired arm muscles would determine when I was done, but instead it was pain in my bum and in my hands that did it. Days later, I still have marks on my middle fingers from the paddles. Mental note, next time I go kayaking, wear gloves.
Over the few days, we drove a number of places - to dinners, to Morro Rock, up to a place to take a short hike, to a beach in a nearby state park, etc. And during those drives, my dad's dog Bruno was a pain in the butt. I had to sit in the back with him, and he would be right by Dad's ear whining and making other noises. I eventually ended up grabbing him and holding him next to me so at least if he whined, it wouldn't be directly into the driver's ear. And it wasn't an easy thing to hold on to him.
Dad's now trying to get me to live with him and Nona. He just doesn't understand (and to be fair, I didn't say this) that I just want a place of my own for once. Both he and Laurel want to see my back in school. Strangely enough, even Dad didn't seem to mean graduate school. He was talking about the university that was fairly new down there (being brand new when I was initially thinking about colleges back in high school), which probably does not have a paleontology program. I don't know. I want to be back in school as well, but I need to figure out what kind of degree I might be going for first.
So from Morro Bay, I continued south on the coastal highway. I figured I'd go as far south as Santa Barbara and work my way north again. The next night I stayed in Lompoc, then Santa Barbara, and last night in Santa Maria. I haven't done too much of note the last few days - stopped by a beach near Lompoc, walked along the beachfront, wharf, and harbor in Santa Barbara, and took some drives has been about it so far. When driving to Santa Maria, I passed a town called Solvang, which was very Danish. They have a Danish sister city, Danish-looking buildings in the town center, have businesses with names like the Viking Inn and Little Mermaid Restaurant, and in October have Danish days. It was just a nice bit of difference in the midst of California Spanish-ness. Mom would have loved it. I thought about stopping, but it was a small town, and it was early yet, so I didn't.
9/18/07
Well, it's been a while since I blogged, so let's see what I can remember (while listening to a Slice of Sci-Fi podcast).
From Santa Maria, I drove to Pismo Beach/Grover Beach area, and found the game store I had found an address for in Grover Beach had closed. Continued on to San Luis Obispo. I didn't stay long, just walked around the downtown area (the game store was closed for renovations apparantly), where there were a bunch of Cal Poly students walking around in groups carrying yellow bags. I don't know what was going on, but apparently it was called WoW. I then drove around the wider area of the the town before heading over to check out Los Osos and Cayacas, towns around Morro Bay which I had not checked out before. I ended the day up in a pleasant little motel up in Cambria. I ended up walking to the other end of Cambria for dinner, which was a tad bit too far.
The next day I toured the Hearst Castle. On the way, I saw the zebras down by the highway, which caused me wonderment because I didn't know I was that close to the Hearst Castle nor that the castle had free roaming herds of zebras, barbary sheep, elk, and asian deer. I took the general tour (tour 1), as well as Tour 2 which toured the upper floors of the main house. It was nice, but there's not much to say about that. Afterward, I went to the nearby elephant seal beach, but it was late, cold, and the seals weren't very close to where you could go, so I left quickly, and spent the night in Paso Robles.
Next, I drove up the 101 to Salinas, looking briefly around the cities along the way. In Salinas, I went to the Steinbeck Museum and bought a shirt. I spent the night at an America's Best Value Inn there in Salinas. I think it was this day that I discovered online that there was a Renaissance Faire going on in nearby Hollister, so I gained by plans for Saturday. (This was Thursday)
Friday, I went over to Monterey and went to the Aquarium, then walked the historical path for a bit. I then headed up to Gilroy to be closer to the Faire. I had planned on going back to the same Econo Lodge, but they were full (with no cars in the parking lot, go figure. The owners couldn't even be bothered to staff their desk. Another person wanting to check in ended up calling on their phone to find that out). I then followed the other person across the street to the Super 8. The other person had a coupon for a single room, but needed a double, and she gave it to me. Then when I checked out, the coupon had been applied to both days, so that really worked out.
Saturday I went to the Ren Faire. The Faire seemed small compared to Larkspur, but was still very nice. I stayed the whole day, mostly watching performances, and picked up a cd for a group called the Belles of Bedlam.
Sunday, I wasn't very sure of what I was going to do. I walked around the outlet mall there by the Super 8, then drove north. I ended up going to the San Jose campus and walking around there. I then went to Berkeley and walked around the campus and a little bit around the shopping area. But walking became uncomfortable by the end of the day, so didn't stick around the downtown area as much as I had wanted. I did discover Berkeley's game store, which was very large and very well stocked, and had some gaming rooms. I tried to email Katrina, but that bounced immediately as I'd expected, so am preparing a letter.
I had signed up for a gameday in Santa Clara for today. However, I thought it was in Santa Rosa, so yesterday I started heading north, again not sure of what I wanted to do, since I had most of two days to make a drive that would be a couple of hours (and probably not that far). So I drove around the north end of the bay and did the scenic drive on the north side of the Golden Gate, which was quite pleasant. While there, I decided to go into San Francisco and find the Scottish store. I did not have fun dealing with San Francisco's streets and traffic, and the store was smaller than expected. I did not see any Gunn kilts, and didn't ask, deciding I could probably order online if I wanted one. On the way into SanFran, I discovered this Roman-esque structure by a center for the Arts that had somehow completely escaped my notice previously. I had had no idea that it existed.
After escaping downtown San Fran, I drove south looking for a place to stay. A Super 8 in San Mateo was sold out of non-smoking singles, and didn't offer me a double for a single price. Guess he was confident in selling out his doubles. I drove on for quite a bit more without noticing anything likely, heading back north when I reached the 880, and finally found a Motel 6 in Newark. So essentially I drove almost completely around the bay, and because I didn't know where I was going when I started, I ended up paying two bridge tolls when I could have escaped them by going the other way. And to top it off, I found out the game was in Santa Clara, not Santa Rosa, which turned out well, since I'm now really close to there.
So my plan for today is to go to the Winchester Mystery House, find a motel in Santa Clara, then go to the game. (Which has 9 people signed up for 1 judge, and I'm number 8, so let's hope I'm not wasting my time.)
9/20/07
My plan went pretty much as I said. When I checked on the game's status in the morning, I was number 6 out of 7, not 8 out of 9, so apparently 2 people had dropped out. Went to the Winchester House, got a room at a motel, and went to the game. The game store was pretty nice, but I was disoriented as there didn't seem to be room for gaming in there. Turns out they had a big space in a nearby building, which took me a while to figure out. The Pale regional itself was alright. We had to decide which of three groups to help in exploring a set of dwarven ruins (we chose the dwarves over the plundering fighters or knowledge-seeking mages because, well, over half the party were dwarves and deep halflings), and that was about as deep as the role-playing went. Typical LG.
Next morning, I drove up the Camino Real, I guess to see where it stopped. I realized I was getting near Pacifica, and remembered I seeing in a paper that there was a video store going out of business there, with supposedly great close-out prices, so eventually found my way over there. For a suburb of San Francisco, it was a bit more cut-off from the rest of the bay community than I would have guessed. The "great deals" weren't - $8-$10 for older dvds, which is what I'd expect from any used dvds, not close-out mark-downs.
Afterwards I drove up to a bit of the Golden Gate Park on the south side of the Gate, then went back over the Golden Gate Bridge and got onto the ocean highway going north. There didn't seem to be many stopping points on the coast, so I headed back inland a little later to stay in Santa Rosa. Though that particular gameday ended up being in Santa Clara, there were a lot of Santa Rosa gamedays listed on warhorn. I checked the local games/comic store, and was quite impressed. Not quite as well-stocked as Berkeley's, but Berkeley's didn't have comics. The workers there commented on the "Clerics" shirt I was wearing, and one of them noticed my RPGA card in my wallet.
When I was in SF the other day, my heat got up over three-quarters. I finally remembered to check my coolant this morning, and it either was empty, or was really close. Whatever it was that seemed to have stopped the coolant loss seems to have ended. I need to keep a better eye on that. So after getting coolant, I headed back to the ocean highway, to take it up to where it ended at the 101 going to Eureka. I stopped at a small post office along the way to mail a letter to Katrina. The drive was pleasant, though it did require your attention.
Soon after I got on the 101, I got off to follow the "Avenue of Giants," a road through the redwoods which paralleled the 101. Then I got off to take this roundabout road that went back to the coast and back up again to get to Eureka. It didn't hit the coast for very long, but the road getting there was so out-of-the-way and on such a difficult road, it occured to me the beaches there might be some of the least frequently visited road-side beaches in California. Of course, there didn't seem to be any parking, and I'm not sure, but you may have to climb over a fence to get to the beach. But hey, if you want to avoid crowds....
There was also a large rock out in the water on this stretch which had a size and an outline exactly like a small military ship. Somebody had even placed a flag in the correct place to enhance the illusion. One of the few times on this trip were I wished I had had a camera.
So I got into Eureka, and got a room in a Motel 6.
9/24/07
I drove north from Eureka through Redwood National Park, stopping to hike one of the trails (the Ladybird Johnson Memorial Grove trail). I made the decision to checkout Seattle, and if I was going that far north, to go ahead and visit Nelson; perhaps find a way to check on the cabin. Driving on from Redwood Park, I got as far as Portland before stopping. The next day, I decided on going to Nelson first. I got to the border at about 6. I guess the lady at the border didn't like my look, cause she searched my trunk. I got into Nelson after dark and got a room at a hostel. (Nelson has 4 hostels. Surprising for such a small town). Because of the new strength of the Canadian dollar versus ours, everything was pretty expensive up there.
The next day, I tried to find the launching point we used to get to the cabin, but didn't know the right street. McGregor Rd. sounded right, but driving down there, I didn't find a point which looked right. Then I tried to walk along the railroad tracks to get there. I estimated it was probably 6-8 miles to the cabin, and I don't believe I made it a mile before I decided to turn back. My legs were feeling such that I thought I might have a hard time with a 12-16 mile round trek. During my little hike, I noticed a pair of osprey (at least I think they were osprey). They screeched repeatedly, and one of them, who for no particular reason I think was the male, was flying circles, twice passing a distance over me. He never came near, but I got the feeling he might have been distracting me from a nest. Since I did not see any jet ski rentals in the area, my last thought was to rent a kayak from a place that was 6 miles from Nelson, so probably pretty close to the cabin, but I had absolutely no confidence in being able to recognize the shoreline near the cabin. So I gave up on visiting the cabin. Because it was Sunday, most of the shops downtown were closed. So I headed out towards Seattle.
Towards sundown I was going through a mountainous state park in Washington, and while going downhill on a longer straight section, I saw something move across the road ahead of me. I thought it might be a deer, and the thought occurred to me, "Hold on, he might not be alone." So I slowed down, and sure enough another deer crossed the road a bit in front of me. If I hadn't slowed down, it might have leaped out right in front of me. I drove on a long time, wishing after the fact that I had stopped earlier. I ended up getting to northern Seattle, but it was after 9 when I finally stopped. I hadn't had wireless access with the hostel (they had one, but the password wasn't working for me), so I didn't discover until tonight that Katrina had responded to my letter. I wrote back in the morning.
This morning, I drove into Seattle proper and over to the Space Needle. I went up to the viewing deck, then visited the nearby Science Fiction Museum. I would also have gone into the Pacific Science Center, since their featured display right now is on giant fossils, and their IMAX show is on dinosaurs. Unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays. So once again, killed by bad timing. Afterwards, I headed back south, and ended up stopping back in Portland.
I waited around for the comics store to open without realizing it wasn't a comics store. I had seen the previous night that it was a games store, and had thought that it had become a games store in addition to a comics store, but I was wrong. It was just a game store now. Which is cool that there was a gaming store near Laurel's, but it was not what I wanted at that moment.
So I drove down to Morro Bay, taking the coastal highway after I got to Monterey. It was a pleasant drive, but obviously not the most efficient way to get to my destination. When I got into Morro Bay, I rented a room in a motel called the Fireside Inn, with each room having this weird fake fireplace thing. Dad called later and wondered why I didn't let him know I had made it into town. I had assumed that he had a reason for telling me to contact him Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night, since I had a shorter drive than he did. It was only four and a half hours taking the slow and curvy coastal route. But oh well.
The next day I met Dad and Gilbert for breakfast. Bert seems like a real nice guy. The place we had breakfast didn't serve french toast, so I ended up only having a blueberry muffin and orange juice. We then went and got some sandwiches and other stuff from a store and headed off to go sailing. It took a while to get the ship ready, but eventually we got out to sea. Unfortunately, the winds were very slow.
So I found out I do get seasick. Good to know. I was doing fine when Bert asked if I wanted my Cokes. I initially said no, but when Dad asked for one, I changed my mind. After drinking the Coke, I started to feel not as well. At this point, Dad said that a full stomach can help offset seasickness. I tried to eat my sandwich, but after taking the first bite, knew that I would not be able to. I put the sandwich aside and a few minutes later, threw up. At some point, Bert mentioned that acidic things help promote seasickness. That would have been good to know before drinking the orange juice and especially the Coke. So I lied down for the rest of the voyage, which helped, but even so towards the end, I got sick again.
On the way out of the Bay, I saw a pair of dolphins in a region of foam right outside the mouth. We also saw quite a number of sea lions. Some we saw moving in groups through the water, jumping out periodically, similar to dolphins (I think its called saltation). Later I even thought I saw one jump straight up without forward motion.
I felt better once we reached the still water of the harbor, and along with Dad and Bruno, slept on the boat the next two nights. However, when Dad and Bert went out the next day, I chose not to go. Even though it was probably true that if I ate more and avoided Cokes (along with faster winds moving the ship better) I might not have gotten sick, especially if we had gotten some dramamine ahead of time, I didn't want to risk it. Who wants to get sick on their birthday?
It was a pretty typical birthday for me. Dad said happy birthday. Bert said it as well when he was reminded, but that's ok since he'd only met me the day before. And Aaron sent a text message and an email. And that was it. Instead of going out on the boat, I used Bert's kayak and bummed around the harbor. I was surprised how shallow some wide expanses of the bay really were (away from where the boats were moored obviously). It was low tide when I was out, and there were places where I was hitting bottom with my oars. I thought that tired arm muscles would determine when I was done, but instead it was pain in my bum and in my hands that did it. Days later, I still have marks on my middle fingers from the paddles. Mental note, next time I go kayaking, wear gloves.
Over the few days, we drove a number of places - to dinners, to Morro Rock, up to a place to take a short hike, to a beach in a nearby state park, etc. And during those drives, my dad's dog Bruno was a pain in the butt. I had to sit in the back with him, and he would be right by Dad's ear whining and making other noises. I eventually ended up grabbing him and holding him next to me so at least if he whined, it wouldn't be directly into the driver's ear. And it wasn't an easy thing to hold on to him.
Dad's now trying to get me to live with him and Nona. He just doesn't understand (and to be fair, I didn't say this) that I just want a place of my own for once. Both he and Laurel want to see my back in school. Strangely enough, even Dad didn't seem to mean graduate school. He was talking about the university that was fairly new down there (being brand new when I was initially thinking about colleges back in high school), which probably does not have a paleontology program. I don't know. I want to be back in school as well, but I need to figure out what kind of degree I might be going for first.
So from Morro Bay, I continued south on the coastal highway. I figured I'd go as far south as Santa Barbara and work my way north again. The next night I stayed in Lompoc, then Santa Barbara, and last night in Santa Maria. I haven't done too much of note the last few days - stopped by a beach near Lompoc, walked along the beachfront, wharf, and harbor in Santa Barbara, and took some drives has been about it so far. When driving to Santa Maria, I passed a town called Solvang, which was very Danish. They have a Danish sister city, Danish-looking buildings in the town center, have businesses with names like the Viking Inn and Little Mermaid Restaurant, and in October have Danish days. It was just a nice bit of difference in the midst of California Spanish-ness. Mom would have loved it. I thought about stopping, but it was a small town, and it was early yet, so I didn't.
9/18/07
Well, it's been a while since I blogged, so let's see what I can remember (while listening to a Slice of Sci-Fi podcast).
From Santa Maria, I drove to Pismo Beach/Grover Beach area, and found the game store I had found an address for in Grover Beach had closed. Continued on to San Luis Obispo. I didn't stay long, just walked around the downtown area (the game store was closed for renovations apparantly), where there were a bunch of Cal Poly students walking around in groups carrying yellow bags. I don't know what was going on, but apparently it was called WoW. I then drove around the wider area of the the town before heading over to check out Los Osos and Cayacas, towns around Morro Bay which I had not checked out before. I ended the day up in a pleasant little motel up in Cambria. I ended up walking to the other end of Cambria for dinner, which was a tad bit too far.
The next day I toured the Hearst Castle. On the way, I saw the zebras down by the highway, which caused me wonderment because I didn't know I was that close to the Hearst Castle nor that the castle had free roaming herds of zebras, barbary sheep, elk, and asian deer. I took the general tour (tour 1), as well as Tour 2 which toured the upper floors of the main house. It was nice, but there's not much to say about that. Afterward, I went to the nearby elephant seal beach, but it was late, cold, and the seals weren't very close to where you could go, so I left quickly, and spent the night in Paso Robles.
Next, I drove up the 101 to Salinas, looking briefly around the cities along the way. In Salinas, I went to the Steinbeck Museum and bought a shirt. I spent the night at an America's Best Value Inn there in Salinas. I think it was this day that I discovered online that there was a Renaissance Faire going on in nearby Hollister, so I gained by plans for Saturday. (This was Thursday)
Friday, I went over to Monterey and went to the Aquarium, then walked the historical path for a bit. I then headed up to Gilroy to be closer to the Faire. I had planned on going back to the same Econo Lodge, but they were full (with no cars in the parking lot, go figure. The owners couldn't even be bothered to staff their desk. Another person wanting to check in ended up calling on their phone to find that out). I then followed the other person across the street to the Super 8. The other person had a coupon for a single room, but needed a double, and she gave it to me. Then when I checked out, the coupon had been applied to both days, so that really worked out.
Saturday I went to the Ren Faire. The Faire seemed small compared to Larkspur, but was still very nice. I stayed the whole day, mostly watching performances, and picked up a cd for a group called the Belles of Bedlam.
Sunday, I wasn't very sure of what I was going to do. I walked around the outlet mall there by the Super 8, then drove north. I ended up going to the San Jose campus and walking around there. I then went to Berkeley and walked around the campus and a little bit around the shopping area. But walking became uncomfortable by the end of the day, so didn't stick around the downtown area as much as I had wanted. I did discover Berkeley's game store, which was very large and very well stocked, and had some gaming rooms. I tried to email Katrina, but that bounced immediately as I'd expected, so am preparing a letter.
I had signed up for a gameday in Santa Clara for today. However, I thought it was in Santa Rosa, so yesterday I started heading north, again not sure of what I wanted to do, since I had most of two days to make a drive that would be a couple of hours (and probably not that far). So I drove around the north end of the bay and did the scenic drive on the north side of the Golden Gate, which was quite pleasant. While there, I decided to go into San Francisco and find the Scottish store. I did not have fun dealing with San Francisco's streets and traffic, and the store was smaller than expected. I did not see any Gunn kilts, and didn't ask, deciding I could probably order online if I wanted one. On the way into SanFran, I discovered this Roman-esque structure by a center for the Arts that had somehow completely escaped my notice previously. I had had no idea that it existed.
After escaping downtown San Fran, I drove south looking for a place to stay. A Super 8 in San Mateo was sold out of non-smoking singles, and didn't offer me a double for a single price. Guess he was confident in selling out his doubles. I drove on for quite a bit more without noticing anything likely, heading back north when I reached the 880, and finally found a Motel 6 in Newark. So essentially I drove almost completely around the bay, and because I didn't know where I was going when I started, I ended up paying two bridge tolls when I could have escaped them by going the other way. And to top it off, I found out the game was in Santa Clara, not Santa Rosa, which turned out well, since I'm now really close to there.
So my plan for today is to go to the Winchester Mystery House, find a motel in Santa Clara, then go to the game. (Which has 9 people signed up for 1 judge, and I'm number 8, so let's hope I'm not wasting my time.)
9/20/07
My plan went pretty much as I said. When I checked on the game's status in the morning, I was number 6 out of 7, not 8 out of 9, so apparently 2 people had dropped out. Went to the Winchester House, got a room at a motel, and went to the game. The game store was pretty nice, but I was disoriented as there didn't seem to be room for gaming in there. Turns out they had a big space in a nearby building, which took me a while to figure out. The Pale regional itself was alright. We had to decide which of three groups to help in exploring a set of dwarven ruins (we chose the dwarves over the plundering fighters or knowledge-seeking mages because, well, over half the party were dwarves and deep halflings), and that was about as deep as the role-playing went. Typical LG.
Next morning, I drove up the Camino Real, I guess to see where it stopped. I realized I was getting near Pacifica, and remembered I seeing in a paper that there was a video store going out of business there, with supposedly great close-out prices, so eventually found my way over there. For a suburb of San Francisco, it was a bit more cut-off from the rest of the bay community than I would have guessed. The "great deals" weren't - $8-$10 for older dvds, which is what I'd expect from any used dvds, not close-out mark-downs.
Afterwards I drove up to a bit of the Golden Gate Park on the south side of the Gate, then went back over the Golden Gate Bridge and got onto the ocean highway going north. There didn't seem to be many stopping points on the coast, so I headed back inland a little later to stay in Santa Rosa. Though that particular gameday ended up being in Santa Clara, there were a lot of Santa Rosa gamedays listed on warhorn. I checked the local games/comic store, and was quite impressed. Not quite as well-stocked as Berkeley's, but Berkeley's didn't have comics. The workers there commented on the "Clerics" shirt I was wearing, and one of them noticed my RPGA card in my wallet.
When I was in SF the other day, my heat got up over three-quarters. I finally remembered to check my coolant this morning, and it either was empty, or was really close. Whatever it was that seemed to have stopped the coolant loss seems to have ended. I need to keep a better eye on that. So after getting coolant, I headed back to the ocean highway, to take it up to where it ended at the 101 going to Eureka. I stopped at a small post office along the way to mail a letter to Katrina. The drive was pleasant, though it did require your attention.
Soon after I got on the 101, I got off to follow the "Avenue of Giants," a road through the redwoods which paralleled the 101. Then I got off to take this roundabout road that went back to the coast and back up again to get to Eureka. It didn't hit the coast for very long, but the road getting there was so out-of-the-way and on such a difficult road, it occured to me the beaches there might be some of the least frequently visited road-side beaches in California. Of course, there didn't seem to be any parking, and I'm not sure, but you may have to climb over a fence to get to the beach. But hey, if you want to avoid crowds....
There was also a large rock out in the water on this stretch which had a size and an outline exactly like a small military ship. Somebody had even placed a flag in the correct place to enhance the illusion. One of the few times on this trip were I wished I had had a camera.
So I got into Eureka, and got a room in a Motel 6.
9/24/07
I drove north from Eureka through Redwood National Park, stopping to hike one of the trails (the Ladybird Johnson Memorial Grove trail). I made the decision to checkout Seattle, and if I was going that far north, to go ahead and visit Nelson; perhaps find a way to check on the cabin. Driving on from Redwood Park, I got as far as Portland before stopping. The next day, I decided on going to Nelson first. I got to the border at about 6. I guess the lady at the border didn't like my look, cause she searched my trunk. I got into Nelson after dark and got a room at a hostel. (Nelson has 4 hostels. Surprising for such a small town). Because of the new strength of the Canadian dollar versus ours, everything was pretty expensive up there.
The next day, I tried to find the launching point we used to get to the cabin, but didn't know the right street. McGregor Rd. sounded right, but driving down there, I didn't find a point which looked right. Then I tried to walk along the railroad tracks to get there. I estimated it was probably 6-8 miles to the cabin, and I don't believe I made it a mile before I decided to turn back. My legs were feeling such that I thought I might have a hard time with a 12-16 mile round trek. During my little hike, I noticed a pair of osprey (at least I think they were osprey). They screeched repeatedly, and one of them, who for no particular reason I think was the male, was flying circles, twice passing a distance over me. He never came near, but I got the feeling he might have been distracting me from a nest. Since I did not see any jet ski rentals in the area, my last thought was to rent a kayak from a place that was 6 miles from Nelson, so probably pretty close to the cabin, but I had absolutely no confidence in being able to recognize the shoreline near the cabin. So I gave up on visiting the cabin. Because it was Sunday, most of the shops downtown were closed. So I headed out towards Seattle.
Towards sundown I was going through a mountainous state park in Washington, and while going downhill on a longer straight section, I saw something move across the road ahead of me. I thought it might be a deer, and the thought occurred to me, "Hold on, he might not be alone." So I slowed down, and sure enough another deer crossed the road a bit in front of me. If I hadn't slowed down, it might have leaped out right in front of me. I drove on a long time, wishing after the fact that I had stopped earlier. I ended up getting to northern Seattle, but it was after 9 when I finally stopped. I hadn't had wireless access with the hostel (they had one, but the password wasn't working for me), so I didn't discover until tonight that Katrina had responded to my letter. I wrote back in the morning.
This morning, I drove into Seattle proper and over to the Space Needle. I went up to the viewing deck, then visited the nearby Science Fiction Museum. I would also have gone into the Pacific Science Center, since their featured display right now is on giant fossils, and their IMAX show is on dinosaurs. Unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays. So once again, killed by bad timing. Afterwards, I headed back south, and ended up stopping back in Portland.