SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERS

Eureka - May 30, 2013

Today was a beautiful, sunny day in northern California.  It was a perfect day for a drive south to the quaint old town of Eureka, California.  The town has maintained many of the turn of the century buildings and there were lots of cute shops and eateries that I would love to explore (Steve is not into shopping).  But we walked and took in the colorful murals painted in alleys and on the sides of buildings.  There is a bustling art community in Eureka.  I'm posting pictures of a couple of the ornate Victorian houses.  The big yellow/green house belonged to a lumber baron and I can only tell you that the picture doesn't do it justice.  It was incredibly ornate.

This afternoon we took a drive on the Redwood Highway which is a scenic route through the redwoods.  We saw lots more elk today.  These were all big ones with huge antlers.  Tomorrow we will leave this area and head up north.  We'll be traveling about 200 miles.  We'll be in Oregon tomorrow.

CAN'T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES

Redwood National Park:   May 29, 2013 

The day started out pretty rainy.  But that didn't stop us fro enjoying a nice hike through the Lady Bird Johnson Grove of redwood trees in Redwood National Park.  The park was founded in 1968.  These majestic redwoods can grow to 350 feet tall and live for 2,000 years or more.     

On our way to the park we spotted several elk along the road.  They are wild elk, but didn't seem to be too threatened by our cameras.   According to the guidebook, they are Roosevelt Elk.                                                                    

 The coastline in northern California is so different that the coastline of southern California that we are used to.  The rain stopped and we enjoyed spending time stopping along the coast to take pictures.

                                                             Trinidad State Beach

The forest is just so beautiful and peaceful.  There were lots of Azaleas in bloom along this hiking trail.  

Tomorrow we plan to head south about 30 miles to the town of Eureka.  It was a town that supported gold mining back in the day as well as logging.  It is supposed to have lots of old restored victorian buildings and some interesting museums.  I'll post about it tomorrow after we've checked it out.

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

May 28  - Corning, CA to Trinity, CA

Today we left in the morning and went north up I-5 from Corning, CA, then took a left in Redding and headed west on the 299 through the Salmon Mountains to Trinidad, California.  From Redding to the coast is 124 miles of windy road that basically follows along beside the Trinity River.  It was a very scenic drive, but when you're driving a 42' rv and towing a car, it can be a bit of a grind.  We did encounter some delays due to road construction and had to wait and follow a pilot car to get through the approximately 5 mile stretch of one lane road.   I guess this area is "Big Foot" country because while driving through the small towns in the mountains, there were several businesses with names such as "Big Foot Burgers", "Big Foot Realty" and "Big Foot Gas" ( really don't think I want to be around Big Foot Gas.   The forests up here are really dense, so I guess he could be hiding up here somewhere.  We pulled into our lovely little rv park, "Sounds of the Sea" around 3:00.  We are just off highway 101 with the ocean just a few hundred feet away.  We plan on staying here a few days to visit Redwood National Park, the picturesque mining town of Eureka, maybe visit a couple of wineries, do a white water raft trip and of course take lots of pictures of the beautiful shorelines here.   This is the memorial lighthouse in Trinity, CA.

A view from Wedding Rock 

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

MAY 25-26  (Murietta, CA to Visalia, CA)

After months of planning and discussion, we were finally ready to begin our much dreamed about trip up the coast of California, Washington and Oregon.  We picked up our newly repaired motor home in Murietta, California and headed out directly from there.  We decided not to hook up our tow vehicle to the rv in order to make it easier to traverse the LA basin. Steve drove the motorhome and I ran interference behind him to help him change lanes and merge into traffic as we made our way. 

There just isn't any good way to get around congestion in the Los Angeles area.  But we chose a route up the 210 freeway through Pasadena and connected with interstate 5 north of the greater LA area.  Overall, it went smoothly.   Once we were through the worst of it, we pulled into a truck stop and hooked the car to the rv.  We stayed at a KOA park just outside of Visalia, California the first night out.  The next day we drove up to Sequoia National Park.  The weather was great and the drive was beautiful up the windy roads to 7,000 feet.  These massive, ancient Sequoias grow only on the western slopes of the sierras between 5,000 to 7,000 feet.  The oldest trees are 3,000 years old.  One cannot really grasp their enormity and majesty from looking at a photograph (but here's one of Steve by the Sentinel tree and one the General Sherman tree).  The tree is over 250 feet tall and by mass is the largest tree standing.   This was only the second weekend the entire park was opened after the winter season.  There was still snow visible on many of the rock formations in the park.  We were in the park very early and by early afternoon, there were lots of people and traffic.  As we left the park, we could see that the line of cars to enter was at least 1/2 mile long.  Guess the summer travel season has begun.  It was still a really nice day.  We stayed one more night in Visalia.

MAY 27  (Visalia, CA to Corning, CA)

Today was a travel day.  No real site-seeing to speak of.  Drove up the 99 highway and connected to I-5 just north of Modesto, California.  Lots of road construction.  Tonight we are staying at an rv park next to a casino just outside of Corning, California.  Some rain and wind and, oh - an earthquake.  Tomorrow we have a relatively short and scenic drive to the coast on route 299.  We plan to stay for a few days in a town called Trinidad.