We were just going to blast down to 'Frisco on Interstate 5 so we could get there as quick as possible. That would allow us to have the maximum amount of time to spend there in the city. When I started thinking about it, I thought a partial coastal route would be "photographically-necessary" because of how we are both umbilically linked to our cameras. That's exactly what we did. I-5 took us to Grants Pass, Oregon, at which time we detoured "off the beaten path" and headed toward Crescent City, California. After seeing how cool Grants Pass looked as we drove through, we made a note to ourselves that we would have to explore this interesting-looking town full of Americana (which means cheesy motels lit with neon lights, and other cool stuff like that) some day in the future.
Highway 199 took us on a nice drive toward the California coast, at which point we caught Highway 101 in Crescent City. Not far south of Crescent City we passed the tall statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox standing guard over the entrance of the famous tourist trap called Trees of Mystery. No, we didn't stop or even slow down. We have both been enthralled by that stop at previous points in our lives--Although much younger times. I did note as I drove by that Babe the Blue Ox was anatomically correct. Maybe the rare sun was lighting things up just right. Besides that, Crescent City is the place where we stopped at the Battery Point lighthouse. That was our first real photo stop on our trip. It was pretty interesting and provided a lot of great photographic possibilities, but I was a little annoyed at the commercialism. It had pay "tours" to the top of the lighthouse (probably a whopping 25 feet up--like an attic in the house) and had someone actually living there. It was weird in that aspect I guess. It was just a little too perfect... Because of its location, you can only get to it during low tide, which we unknowingly timed perfectly. Pretty cool stop though. Nice pictures.
We did our usual "Oooo... STOP!" (followed by screeching tires) photography as we wound our way down the coast. What that means is, practically every place that we could pull over off the road we did. We got some awesome stuff though, so our style works. At least it works for us. We were humbled many, many times by the Redwood trees as we drove among them (the first being before we even got to Crescent City) and still hadn't stopped to take any pictures of them. Finally, we had a moment of clarity (meaning Sue told me firmly and with authority) and decided that we had to stop the next time we saw any and get some pictures of them. We detoured off a road onto The Avenue of the Giants. Let me tell you--Until you see Redwood trees in person, you can't really comprehend how really massive they are. Pictures just don't do them justice. What helps is when you put people into a picture, or even better: Drive your car through one of them. That's exactly what we did. Tourist trap-ish or not, we paid the 5 bucks to drive the famously worn (but stalwart) Neon through the hole that someone (obviously not an environmentalist) had carved through a sturdy, old Redwood. Called the Chandelier Tree, it is supposedly about 2400 years old. How do they know? They counted the rings as they looked up through their sunroof while driving through. Duh. Check Suzie's blog to see that picture.
Near the town of Leggett we turned off of Highway 101 onto the lesser traveled Highway 1. This is where the real scenery started. Now not only was the drive picturesque, it was also twisty and remote. It was also riddled with special-effects fog here and there.
In addition to the first one we saw in Crescent City, we still had two other lighthouses on our list. The next one we hit was the one called Point Cabrillo. The sun was getting low in the sky and we still had a lot of ground to cover so we had to hurry. This one was located about a half mile down a grassy path so we were walking with purpose (almost running). Hey, it was in the interest of photography! It was a cool spot and well worth the trek. The next (and last) lighthouse was called Point Arena. We were really running out of time when we got to this one. By the time we got there it was basically sunset. The lighting conditions were not great, but again, it was a cool stop. Lighthouses are all different in some way or another--be it location, size, time of day, lighting, etc., but they all offer something photographic.
We made little detours here and there to investigate stuff like we always do of course. A good example would be the town of Mendocino (which was near Point Cabrillo). Very interesting. A very remote location (for a thriving town) and perched above cliffs overlooking the Pacific ocean, it kind of had an "old west" look to it as well as being kind of upscale-feeling. It looked like a rich person's resort town. A town where, if you had money, you could escape to on weekends. Like New Yorkers do with The Hamptons. The town of Fort Bragg was very interesting too. It was probably very "touristy" and fake, but it looked like it would be an interesting place to wander around in and take pictures. Maybe next time.We seriously underestimated the amount of time it would take us to navigate the circuitous Highway 1 when we planned our trip. In some areas it was second gear driving at 25mph tops. Even the way I drive wasn't enough to carry us completely out of that area by the time it was time to stop for a motel. That's another thing--there were no amenities to speak of anywhere on Highway 1. By the time we gave up and went for the fastest way out and back to civilization (meaning Highway 101 in this case) it was late. By the time we did finally find a suitable motel to camp out at, we were in Novato, only a a little over a half hour north of the Golden Gate bridge. By the time we got into a motel room it was somewhere around 11pm. I believe when all was done we had driven over 500 miles of curvy, tedious, beautiful roads... And it only took us about 15 hours. But the motel had great internet.
Next: Uh... The next part!
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