Pacific Coast Roadtrip

Many thanks to Adam and Andrea for putting us up and showing us around in San Francisco! We packed up this morning, fetched the vehicles from the garage, and promptly got stuck in traffic. Without admitting to any weakness on my part, we had planned our route out of San Francisco to take the Embarcadero not only because it is iconic, but mainly because it is flat. Unfortunately, even by its usual congested standards, it was a mess today. After what seemed like hours, we finally rejoined the 101 and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge as a team.

When we landed on the other side in Sausalito, we followed Highway 1 as it split off, back to the coast over the windiest road we’ve seen yet. Little did we know, this would be the theme for today.

After the first several beaches, traffic thinned out. The rest of the day was spent speeding along this narrow, twisted ribbon of spectacular nature. Sometimes less than a quarter mile divided forest mountains from sandy beaches. The smells of seasalt air, cattle herds, and eucalyptus trees mixed together as wind rushed through the truck cab. A very strange combination.

We stopped for a brief lunch and fuel near Bodega Bay and watched the windsurfers and sailboats fly around the choppy inlet. We again feasted on great seafood, and I fed the truck the first serving of the injector cleaner. It’s running smoother today; the idling issues have smoothed out, and the Service light went off! I still leave a burst of white exhaust on a cold start, though, but it hasn’t gotten any worse…

From Bodega Bay, we followed the 1 around to the Russian Gulch State Park near Mendocino for another round of photos and some wandering.

The park runs beneath yet another impressive bridge on this adventure.

(Yes, I’ll clean my lenses tonight. Yikes!)

Then Highway 1 treated us to the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever seen. The sun set over the water, lighting the ocean on fire, while we swerved around the banked road high above the beach at speeds unapproved by our mothers.

Just as the sun set and twilight turned the sky a deep blue, Highway 1 plunged deep into a hilly forest of trees so tall, the tops weren’t even visible. Evan thinks they were mostly eucalyptus, and that we’ll see the redwoods tomorrow. We each put our vehicles to quite the handling test, as the cornering got increasingly aggressive. It was easily the most challenging part of today’s drive, and we did it mostly in the dark.

When we emerged out the other side, as Highway 1 joins back up with US 101 in Legett, we looked up at a breathtakingly clear and star-filled night sky. Even the Milky Way was clearly visible.

A treacherously steep driveway at the south end of the Avenue of the Giants led us up to our cabin motel, the Madrona Motor Court. We unloaded and quickly ran across the street to a nearby bar, probably the only one around. Home to people no less than thirty years our senior with a jukebox that began with Mercy, Mercy Me and continued with Desperado, this little mountain establishment seems to host quite the local color. We toasted the awesomeness of our three vehicles and called it a night.

Today was our longest drive so far, and we hit one thousand miles this afternoon. (George’s Cabriolet hit 180k, too, which we celebrated.) Tomorrow will be nearly as long, taking us out of California and into Coos Bay, Oregon, which is good because the truck’s registration expired yesterday…