Eureka, Redwoods, and Pot

It's been a week since our last blog! Yikes! When we left you last time, we were hunkered down in a bad storm on the Oregon coast. Fortunately no trees blew down on us, but it blew the paint right off our RoadTrek! Some areas had tornados just after we passed through. Can you believe this? We're definitely due for a major paint job when we get back. (New windshield still looks good though!)

Paint damage due to high winds and lashing rain. Poor RoadTrek!

Although it was still raining when we left the campground on Friday to complete our Oregon coastal drive, it wasn't blowing nearly as bad as it was on Thursday. We still had the southern portion of the coast to drive, and it was just as spectacular as the rest of it. We stopped at several view spots to grab pics of the other-worldly rocky structures in the ocean, being lashed by rain, wind and waves. We can understand how these natural sculptures are formed! One spot had a huge rock arch with waves surging through the arch. We got tired of saying "Wow!" all the time.

Large shark fin?

Trees grow on rocks in ocean. How about that?

There's a big hole in that rock.

We finally said goodbye to Oregon, and crossed over into northern California. We were headed to Eureka to visit some good friends of ours who we hadn't seen in a bunch of years. To get there, we drove through part of Redwoods National Park (actually it's a national park that cooperates with several California state parks to form one big beautiful park). We drove for miles through one section of beautiful redwoods along highway 101. Unfortunately due to the rain and taking our time driving, we didn't have time to stop and take photos, as we needed to get to Eureka well before dark. But we promised ourselves we'd definitely see more redwoods and take photos later while in the area.

Our friend Norm has lived and had his solar business in Eureka for over 40 years. (Both of us used to work with Norm many years ago.)  We pulled into his driveway around 5 pm, and he met us riding on a Segway! Carol got VERY excited because she's had a longstanding desire to ride a Segway but has never had the opportunity. Norm gave her a quick lesson and she executed a few maneuvers in his driveway. Carol: AWESOME! I WANT ONE!

Carol riding Norm's Segway--on Carol's wish list. 

Jack getting advice from Norm about off-grid solar power.

After oohing and aahing over the Segway (Norm had to show us how well he can maneuver it--the thing is uncanny!), we sat and yakked for awhile, catching up on the last 10 years or so--lot of water over the dam. We made plans to get together the next day for brunch. Then we headed on to the next town down, Del Rio, to Norm's RV park which is managed by his ex-wife Sharon, also a dear friend of ours. The RV park is right on the Eel River--Sharon met us as we drove in and escorted us to our site, right beside her RV. It's exciting to see her after so long. We also met her friend Lee, and Huckleberry, a huge, friendly (and always hungry) Labrador. (Lee had assembled dinner for us all--meatloaf and mashed potatoes--what a guy!)

Carol and good buddy Sharon.

Lee (with guitar) and Huckleberry (the dog).

We spent a pleasant night there, and had coffee with Sharon in the morning, and then went to meet Norm the next day for brunch/lunch, and then went to see his solar business, Six Rivers Solar. He's won a lot of awards for his business and it was exciting to finally see the place. He is definitely a solar power pioneer! Seems that there's nothing he doesn't know about that business.

Sharon makes a great cup of coffee.

We took Sharon out for dinner that night at a historic restaurant/inn in Scotia, an interesting nearby town, with a long logging history. The food was fabulous! (In fact, we've been eating very well ever since we got here.) It was wonderful hanging out with old buddies again. Sharon has taken up the ukelele and she and Carol spent an afternoon picking and singing duets--lots of fun! Great visit!

Hated to leave, but the redwoods were calling us. First we needed to get the oil changed in the van, and we found a nice place nearby to get that done. (We saw an interesting phenomenon while waiting on the van--a rainbow that went across a wooded hill, rather than being in the sky. Weird.) The van was certified A-OK and we headed south, toward The Avenue of the Giants, a 32-mile-long scenic byway south of Eureka that is in the largest remaining old-growth coastal redwood forest.

We didn't expect to be as gobsmacked as we were by the redwoods. These trees are just breathtakingly magnificent. We've both seen a few redwoods before, but not in this quantity. They're huge, the tallest living creatures, and very, very old. Some are thousands of years old. The Avenue of the Giants turned out to be an interesting combo of pristine, primeval redwood forest and kitschy, vintage (circa 1950s) touristy stuff. We ogled the trees (the sun came out for this drive!), and stopped at most of the touristy stops too. Like the cute little houses made from a single redwood log, or the 20-foot room built under the stump of a dead redwood, or the drive-through tree. Our van couldn't fit through this drive-through tree, but we watched (and photographed) a car drive through it, and then we got a passerby to photograph us strolling through it. Too much fun!

Carol with a majestic giant.

Jack with a double-trunked redwood (starts out as one big trunk at the bottom and then separates into two).

Roadtrek doesn't fit but Jack and Carol do.

This Toyota fits...barely

Carol in the treehouse she always wanted, made from one log.

We finally had to stop at a campground when it got dark (big trees in the campground too). We planned to get most of the way to Lake Tahoe, our next destination, the next day, but that was not in the cards. We drove south on Highway 101 for about an hour and then came upon a line of cars stopped dead. We sat there for a while, thinking it was yet another "road work" stop, but then we saw people getting out of their cars and wandering down the road out of sight. Some of them eventually came back and we asked them what was going on. It turned out that an oil tanker had just turned over about a half mile up the road from us and had spilled oil all over the world. We wouldn't be moving for 4 to 5 hours! This is one of those times when we're really glad to be in our RoadTrek! We turned on the generator and worked on our laptops, had a frig full of snacks and sodas, and our own bathroom. So no worries! We chatted with some of the other folks in line with us. And finally the CHP vehicle came through with his loudspeaker saying to get ready, that we'd be moving shortly. It was about 4 or 5 hours, sure enough.

We were stuck in this line of traffic for about 5 hours, while Hazmat team cleaned up spilled oil off the road. 101 was closed for a long time.

We stopped for gas in the little town of Garberville and were amazed to see the streets filled with "hippies"--or that's what we would call them--a flashback to the 1960s. Unkempt, unwashed people with unusual, not very clean clothing, lots of rasta hair, and with a very spaced out look in their eyes. Also many unusual vehicles, like painted-up old schoolbuses. And LOTS of young hitchhikers. They were EVERYWHERE in this town, filling up the minimart where we got our gas, lining the sidewalks, and hitchhiking on every road. Carol did a little research and found that this is due to this place being the world capital of pot growing (i.e., marijuana, mary jane, hemp, weed, ganja... whatever you like to call it). In this county, Humboldt, growing pot is the main industry and it is very lucrative. The marijuana grown here is supposed to be the best in the world, and brings a premium price. These flower children come here from all over the world to live in the redwood forest and smoke the fabulous (to them) weed. We photographed one of the strangely decorated buses at a motel where we stayed for the next two nights. (Carol got loaded up with book editing so we did some down time at a motel for her to catch up.) No pot smoking for us...

Quite the van, right out of the sixties. But the occupants looked like they were in their twenties.

In the next installment, we visit Lake Tahoe--yet another incredibly beautiful part of our country!