Redwoods to… along the coast? Or so we thought. During our drive south from the Redwoods we stopped to grab a coffee and while perusing for a snack, Tara came across this really weird Bigfoot display. There were a bunch of news paper clippings and photos of Bigfoot sightings, but they were displayed in what appeared to be an old deli display. You know when you go to the grocery store and you go to the deli to get lunch meat… the display with the big glass front… yeah that kind of display case so it was weird. Anyways we didn’t think much of it and went to check out, and the guy behind the counter was talking about Bigfoot. Now, I’m a huge Bigfoot fan (love his work) and it hit me… we’re in California Bigfoot country. I obviously had to ask where we were in relation to the Patterson Gimlin film (Bigfoot people know what that means), my dad would be so bummed that I didn’t know it off the top of my head since he’s an even bigger Bigfoot fan than I am, but the guy told me that we were only about an hour and a half from there, and we were about the same distance from Willow Creek. Willow Creek has the most reported (not confirmed) sightings of Bigfoot of anywhere in the world. We headed to Willow Creek to hit the Bigfoot Museum. The PG film was recorded in Bluffs Creek which would have required a long drive, and a long hike… I’ll do that next time we’re here.
Despite the unimaginable number of drifters/hitchhikers/vagrants in Willow Creek, the Bigfoot Museum was great and had an incredible amount of photos and old news paper clippings and things like that.
Then we stopped quick to get lunch… I ordered, wait for it… the Bigfoot burger.
Unfortunately, due to road construction (which is taking place all over the state of California) I realized that I, I say “I” because I think Tara was humoring me with the Bigfoot detour, took us a solid 3 hours out of the way. This broke one of my rules of the road; Try to be where you’re going before it’s dark. We weren’t.
Rt1 and the Coast
Our route after the Bigfoot detour took us down Rt 101, to Highway 1. Once we got on Rt 1, it was dark, we were driving through a huge redwood forest, and Rt 1 is super windy. We passed a few cool random things like “The Legend Of Bigfoot” and the “One Log House”. Our last stop before leaving the Redwoods was the drive-thru tree…the camper was too big so we just walked through.
There’s no way to really explain the drive… in the dark, uphill, with the camper, a wife who hates windy roads, constantly pulling over for people to pass you, and the whole time you’re saying out loud “this isn’t bad, it’s like a video game” when inside you’re saying… “OMG Derek, how are we going to do this”, but you don’t want to make your passenger more scared than she already is. It was super nerve racking, scary, and just one of the most bizarre and challenging drives I’ve ever done. Once we came out of the woods, were were along the coast. That’s what our GPS said… to us it just looked like a dark drop off into nothingness.
Then we panicked about where we were staying, but just as we came over a small bridge, we noticed 5 campers, and about 3 vans just pulled off to the right in this large turnout… so we joined them. We got out to walk Murph for his “night pee” when we realized we had pulled off the highway onto a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean… It was roughly a 50 foot drop down rocks to the water. The type of cliff where you’re afraid to go to the edge because it might give way and break off sending you down. Awesome, let’s get some rest and get ready for our drive down the coast in the morning.
The next morning we woke up for our great drive down the northern california coast and much to our chagrin, nothing but fog. Like, Pea Soup kind of fog. After some debating on what to do, I mean, we took the coastal drive to see the coast and it was very clear to us (not outside) that we weren’t going to see anything. So, reluctantly we headed south.
Shortly into our drive we stopped for gas. While pumping gas, a guy started asking me questions about our camper. He told me that in ’76 he drove a ’68 camper through Mexico… I don’t know it was really random, but I did ask about the weather and he said, “yeah, the fog is pretty common, it should clear up mid day… around 3pm or so, and then, around 6pm, it’s going to roll back in” I thought, 3 hours of clear skies… that can’t be right. Much to our surprise, you could almost set your clock to it… 3pm, the fog lifted and it was beautiful out for about… 3 hours, then at about 5:50pm, we saw that fog rolling back in. I thought the guy was bananas, but apparently he should be the local weatherman.
A little later on the drive we stopped in the Fort Bragg area at Glass Beach. “Derek, that sounds cool, what’s the Glass Beach?” I’m glad you asked Reader, Glass Beach is a place along the California coast where years worth of old glass (garbage) has washed up on shore after years and years of being beaten by the ocean into smooth small rock like pieces. The amount of glass left at the beach is disappearing over the years as people collect it for souvenirs, or to sell. It is against the law the take the glass (basically it’s against the law to remove pollution from the ocean) and Tara wouldn’t bend on this rule, so… I didn’t get any glass.
We continued on to Elk, CA where we stopped at Queenie’s. A small diner type place for lunch. Here we met a couple from southern California who were on a small road trip of their own. After talking a little while, we found out that the guy had actually grown up in Stoughton, a little ways south of Boston… small world. Oh, yeah, he had a Bruins tattoo that he showed me immediately.
We continued down the coast and stopped at Point Arena Lighthouse. This was where I found out that old men who look like sea captains no longer live in lighthouses and keep them up. Retirement plan, crushed.
We also stopped at a small beach, I don’t even think it had a name, to get Murphy out of the backseat and to let him stretch his legs. Tara and I took full advantage of the excuse to stop at this beach.
After more scenic coastal views (the fog lifted after lunch) and another windy, drive along high cliffs, we turned off Highway 1 and drove through the Russian River and Sonoma area and finally, we got to our campsite, in the dark. (rules of the road are made to be broken) We spent the night camping in the Napa State Park. Smells like tomorrow’s a wine day.
withoutwhatifs 