our road trip to the northern california coast
Hello family and friends....and happy new year! Welcome to the story of John and Suzanne's road trip up the northern California coast--a journey of 1,750 miles, 4 towns where we laid our heads at night and many, many stops along the way. We have John to thank for this trip. It was his inspired idea take a road trip on our holiday break--December 26-31, 2006--to head north along the coast, to enjoy the beauty of California and visit the National Redwood Forest in Humboldt County just below the Oregon border. John also logged 80% (or more!) of the miles and was our chief photographer. (Oh, yeah, and he is the architect of this great web page!) Suzanne ably assisted him as his chief navigator (i.e., reader of the maps) and photographer's assistant and now as chief narrator. We are excited to share our journey with you and hope it will inspire you to take a similar trip yourself or to visit us in California so we can show you our beautiful state! (If you'd like to see a larger image of any of the photographs, just click on the photo. These are just a small selection of some of our best or favorite photos.)
This trip was a wonderful gift to ourselves to close out 2006 on a very high note by taking a grand adventure. We are refreshed, rested and excited for 2007! We hope you are, too!
Enjoy!
John & Suzanne
January 1, 2007
Dawn in Santa Barbara
We set off at 5 am on Tuesday, December 26th. This was a brilliant idea on John's part as we flew through LA sans traffic and made it to Santa Barbara by 7 a.m. to see the sun rise!
These are elephant seals and they are enormous (and a bit smelly)! We were among a healthy crowd of visitors who stopped and were mesmerized by the sight of numerous seals lying on the beach taking a snooze with each other. One big fella (photo 2) was a bit feisty and made his presence known to all!
Highway One is one of the most scenic drives you will ever take. We stopped at several points to take in the sights of the ocean. The weather was overcast which created a beautiful wintry backdrop for the ocean and coast. Here, again, is John, my handsome photographer. (Who is inspiring me to enjoy photography as well!)
We ventured onto the "17 mile drive" -- a beautiful drive through Pebble Beach, one of the country's most exclusive neighborhoods and home to several world class golf courses. At this point, the wind was blowing up a storm and the waves were enormous. We caught these two golfers trying to finish up their game despite the crazy winds. The last photo is the "Lone Cypress" a famous and heavily-photographed tree here in California. It's quite beautiful but John and I aren't sure what all the hype is about!
At last--Monterey--our final resting place for our first night! I promptly got comfortable on the bed in our hotel room and opened my book to relax for a few minutes. Not long after John took this photograph, he settled in for a long winter's nap. I joined him within about 10 pages... (Yes, we did manage to get up in time to catch dinner in town on Cannery Row.) The last four pictures were taken on Wednesday morning before we hit the road. We dubbed photo #4 the "photo of the morning." Talk about incredible timing! John hit this one on the mark. I just had to capture the photo of the Siamese cat who came out of her spot in the yard to pose for me. What can I say?
On day 2 we our journey took us from Monterey to the town of Healdsburg in the heart of Sonoma County, wine country. The journey north from Monterey brought us one of the wildest and most breath-taking experiences of the whole trip. The winds along the coast were crazy and record-breaking surf was being reported in the southern part of the state. Needless to say, we had to get out of the car and experience it for ourselves. We heard on news reports that wind gusts were up to 60 miles per hour. We literally had to hold on for dear life to keep from getting blown away! At one point John had to get on his knees so he wouldn't get blown over the cliff. As you can see, John managed to catch a shot of me sneaking a photo of him! The final two pictures were taken at a spot just north of the first four. What you're looking at is sea foam. It created a "carpet" of foam on the water that looked just like snow. Big buffs of sea foam were being blown up from the sea across the road--it was quite a sight!
Ah, yes, San Francisco! The most amazing city in the U.S.! We didn't spend any time in the city on our drive north. We did stop to catch a few shots of the city from the Golden Gate bridge. I get credit for photo #5, the "photo of the afternoon" (to go along with John's "photo of the morning" taken in Monterey.)
I think the wine country of Sonoma County is one of the most beautiful areas in California. John and I competed for the best shots--here we are two for two. We caught the sun at just the right time of the day. John has an incredible eye for light so he suggested we stop along side of the road to catch some shots of the grape vines. John enjoyed this part of the trip and commented several times on how much it reminded him of the wine farms in South Africa.
We spent our second night in Healdsburg, a tiny town with a charming town square. I found my first small independent bookstore of the trip in the heart of the town square. One of my favorite things to do is to find the independent book stores in whatever town I'm visiting. I hit quite a few on this trip. While I was browsing in the bookstore, John was experimenting with his photo techniques outside and created this great shot of car headlights and taillights. It has something to do with "long exposure." Don't ask me...I just think it looks cool! Yes, that's me in the bookstore photo. Sneaky John captured photos of me in three book stores on our trip. I finally caught on to his tactics at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. He also caught the beautiful star lamps in a shop window. I had to buy one for our house--that was the first order of business the next morning! (We bought one just like the second from the left.) Speaking of the next morning....we also started our day off with a stop at the Oakville Grocery, one of neatest little markets you'll ever find. Here we bought the fixings for a nice little lunch picnic--wine, cheese, baguette, proscuitto, etc. Our "little picnic" turned out to be our most expensive meal of the trip! We had a wonderful find at this market--John was delighted to discover that they carried South African "peppadews"--a small, red pepper that is grown in South Africa. It's both sweet and tangy with quite a punch. He hasn't found them anywhere else in the U.S. so he was thrilled. We also acquired a the latest CD by Eric Clapton and JJ Cale. It's a winner--we highly recommend it. John justified this purchase as "supporting the local economy." I like that one. I'll have to use that one some time!
Here we are on day 3, heading north from Healdsburg to the northern most town in our journey, Arcata. We wanted to get back to the coast so heading out of Healdsburg, we took Route 128 north to Highway 1. The 128 was one of the most beautiful drives that either John and I had been on in our lives. The first part of the road was surrounded left and right with vineyeards. The roads were curvy beyond imagination (so we thought at the time! Read on....) and around each turn was a view that was more beautiful than the last. Saaby (our nickname for our spectacular touring mobile!) was in heaven as she hugged each and every curve along the way. As John says, she was "dancing" all day. (Yep, that's Saaby in photo 4!) John kept commenting about how much his brother Chris would love the wine country and how much our friend Sam would love riding his motorcycle on the 128. John spent quite a bit of time thinking out loud about how he and Sam could get their bikes up to the 128 to enjoy a long ride together. I think an RV and bike trailer were involved.... Here we were at day 3 thinking "each day keeps getting better and better!"
The 128 ended just south of Mendocino, a seaside town in the heart of Mendocino County, another very popular part of the California wine country. The town was very charming and right on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It was a bit more of a tourist trap than we anticipated which was disappointing. Nonetheless, I found another great bookstore (John caught me again!) and that was well worth the stop. The electricity was out all across the town due to the high winds from the day before. These winds were serious, I promise! We stopped at several points along the way to Arcata capturing these coastal shots. The photo of John is probably my favorite of the trip. See the smile on his face? My handsome photographer was in heaven--taking photos to his heart's content in this glorious seaside setting (with his lady love by his side!) The part of our journey after these shots, leaving Highway 1 and heading inland to the 101 to head to Arcata, is not captured in photos. First of all, the road was way to narrow to stop off to take photos. Secondly, the drive took so much concentration on John's part that he wasn't even thinking about taking pictures! We drove on about a 20 mile stretch of road that must have had 200 curves in the road--easily! They were tight, hard curves--one after the other, after the other. I do not get car sick but a few times I had to open the window to get fresh air. I thought I was going to lose it! We couldn't get over how wild the ride was. At one point, we saw a sign for "Curve Ahead 10 MPH." Guess what, we literally had to slow down to 10 MPH to take the turn! I was never so glad to reach the 101 so I could get my stomach back again! (Even Saaby was a bit tired after that ride.)
What can we say about Arcata? This was one crazy place. The host in a restaurant where we had lunch on day 2 said, "Oh, you're going to where all the hippies are" when we told him we were going to Arcata. Neither John nor I were put off by that. After all, what's wrong with a little peace, love and happiness? Well, it appears Arcata is home to a different kind of hippie--the "pissed at the world" kind of hippie. John and I are nice folks but our new hippie friends didn't seem to think so. We were dumbfounded by how unfriendly the folks were in this town. To top it off, The Hotel Arcata (photo 2), right on the happening town square (photo 1), brings a whole new meaning to the word "charming." It has potential to be charming but isn't quite there. John was so put off by the town folks and the hotel that he wrote a review on tripadvisor.com! (Oh, yeah, did we mention that one of he local attorneys advertises in the town paper as specializing in "marijuana defense"?) Now, we don't want you to think Arcata didn't have any redeeming qualities--not so. Firstly, I found a great bookstore (no photos, John was napping back in the room.) Secondly, we found a bottle of South African wine John had not yet found in the U.S. (a Neil Ellis Cabernet--our South African family will get this). Another great South African find! Go figure! Needless to say, we purchased it. Speaking of South African finds, if you look at photo 3, you can see the South African peppadews in the middle bottom of the picture--the little red things. Yes, we finally enjoyed our picnic lunch for dinner in our hotel room.
The beach shots (second row) were taken in the early morning on the way from Arcata to the redwood forest. We found a stretch of beach that had beautiful black stoney sand and was totally peaceful and quiet--we were the only people on the beach for as far as the eye could see.
The shots starting in row 3, with the elk, were taken on our journey through the Redwood forest. The redwoods are magnificent! You cannot even believe how tall they are. We discovered a wonderful spot where we found elks roaming wild and a very cool hiking trail that took us deep into the forest. It was so green and lush and beautiful. I expected to come up on a family of gnomes! Our journey by car took us to a crazy little unpaved coastal road (row 4 and 5) that brought great views and an exciting ride. We stumbled onto an WWII radar station. John stopped to take a few photos so he could share them with his dad, Terry, who ran a radar station during the war. Very cool!
