Pacific Coast -- Northern California and Oregon

Beaches, Redwoods, and a Lighthouse

May 5, 2003

Monday morning, we drove towards Mendocino, on the coast. This was a beautiful drive along archetypical California coast, with waves, and rocks and cliffs. We stopped in Mendocino, did a little window shopping and had a great lunch at a cafe overlooking the ocean. After lunch, we continued north. The campground that we had planned to stay at was closed, so we just traveled north, until we came upon a lovely RV park on the beach north of Fort Bragg -- the Westport Beach RV Park. This park was not listed in our directory, but the location was so lovely that we decided to stay for the night. It was actually a very nice park -- clean and neat and a great location at the foot of a cliff on an inlet from the ocean. The dogs (and we, too!) had a great romp on a deserted California beach and we saw the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.

May 6-7, 2003

Our next destination was the coast redwoods, so Tuesday morning we headed north. The drive along the California coast was beautiful, but the roads were windy, steep, and narrow. At one point, we had to stop for quite awhile by an active landslide, near the "World-Famous Tree House". They stopped all traffic in both directions, and then sent in lots of dump trucks to haul away mud and dirt. After they got enough dirt cleared, they would let a single lane of traffic through, then they would do it again. Interesting to see an active landslide and drive through the mud.

We headed to Elk Prairie Campground in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (embedded within Redwood National Park) to spend several days camping in the redwoods. The campground is called "Elk Prairie" because a herd of Roosevelt Elk frequent the area -- and politely posed for us!

We found a lovely campsite next to a stream and had a nice, warm campfire to help counteract the cool, damp weather. Kasie kept Jacque company while she got some work done.

On Thursday, we took a ten mile hike through the tall, tall redwoods (James Irvine trail) to the beach, where we ate lunch and saw another herd of elk. Along this trail, we saw lots of mushrooms and other fungi, banana slugs, and many trees over 350 feet tall -- tall as a 35-story building! If you look carefully in the adjacent photo, you can pick out Jacque (in a blue shirt) dwarfed by the trees.

[To the uninitiated: a banana slug is a large slug, up to 4 or more inches long, that is usually bright yellow to green in color. They just lie around on the floor of the redwood forest waiting for someone to step on them -- they're pretty slimy, so you can actually slip and fall if you are not careful! The campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz is situated within a redwood forest, and, in recognition of the large number of banana slugs to be found on campus, they have chosen the Banana Slug to be their official team mascot.]

Just before reaching the beach, we passed through "fern canyon", a vertical-walled canyon lined with ferns and waterfalls. The map failed to mention that the trail disappears into the stream bed at the bottom of the canyon -- we managed to keep mostly dry, but we were really glad that we had Gore-Tex^® boots!

At the beach we found another herd of elk grazing among the beach grasses. After lunch we hiked back along Miners Ridge trail, through both old-growth, never logged redwoods and areas that had been logged at some time. The difference between the logged and unlogged forests was quite striking. We got back to our campground just as it started to rain.

May 8, 2003

It rained through the night, but the next day was bright and clear, so we packed up and headed to Oregon -- one of the two states that Jacque had never been to. Shortly before reaching Oregon we paused for a moment for a photo-op with Babe the Blue Ox.

The coast of Oregon was striking, with rocky beaches and evergreen forests. We were also struck by the amount of clear-cut logging that was being done in the coastal mountains of Oregon. We planned to stay somewhere on the coast and happened upon the Umpqua Lighthouse State Park in the late afternoon. Our campsite overlooked Lake Marie. That evening Jacque cooked yet another gourmet meal over the campfire, and spent some time practicing her guitar while it was cooking. (She's made a goal for this trip of learning to play comfortably.) The next morning, we took a very nice walk around the lake and out to the lighthouse on the coast.

May 9-10, 2003

On Friday, on the advice of Wade and Susan, we headed to Eugene, Oregon. They insisted that we had to go there for the Saturday Market. They were right, too. This was a great market in downtown Eugene -- part farmers market (with lots of organic produce -- we stocked up) and a general market with arts and crafts and food. We wandered around the market, but did not find the "mushroom log guy". We did, however, find everything else that Wade and Susan said we should find -- including good coffee, good food, and lots of interesting arts and crafts.

We had dinner at Hilda's (another recommendation of Susan's). This was probably some of the most interestingly and nicely spiced food we've had in a restaurant in awhile. The next morning, we had coffee and breakfast in a local coffee shop that we had scoped out on Friday, then headed towards Corvallis and then on to the Columbia River Gorge.