Northern California has some beautiful scenery…and more than its fair share of wackiness.
We drove for a couple of days down the “Redwood Highway”, a route that took us through miles of pristine forests made up of the tallest trees on the planet. The highlight of the journey? A trip to the Chandelier Drive-Thru tree. You can just imagine the planning meeting: “So, we’ve got this big ol’ tree, two thousand four hundred years old, been here since before Jesus, how can we show our appreciation for such a beautiful work of nature?” “Um, why don’t we cut a big hole in it so we can drive through it with our trucks”. We did of course give it a go.
In Eureka, our van started to make a rather alarming noise (not the ecstatic welcome to the city that its name led us to hope for), which resulted in a swift despatch to the nearest garage. Whilst waiting for it to be repaired we had the opportunity to hang out with the owner of the local gun shop. It was an enlightening experience (“Yeh, we got plenty of stuff to kill round here. Elk, turkeys, wild pigs, bears. We got mountain lions too but you can’t shoot them cos they’re protected. I guess you folk don’t have much to shoot in England, ‘cept for wolves and shit”).
We left Eureka late in the day (and significantly lighter of pocket), and ended up spending a night sleeping in a county fairground field in Ferndale, a completely preserved Victorian village. We were feeling a bit disgruntled when we arrived, but this sign at the campsite cheered us up no end.
Highway 1 links a series of tiny settlements together via a winding and sometimes rather precipitous route with stunning views of the Nor-cal coastline. We visited the Triangle Tattoo Museum in Fort Bragg, admired the view in Mendocino (where Rebel Without a Cause was filmed), and scoffed pancakes n’ maple syrup in Point Arena.
Today we stopped by a public pay-phone on a remote stretch of Highway 1 and were besieged by a band of children dressed in white shirts, waistcoats and fur hats wanting to call 911. We asked if everything was OK. The response: “we’re meant to be hiking but there’s a barbed wire fence in the way”. Apparently this is enough to provoke mass hysteria in these parts. Clearly one of them did manage to call 911 as a police car with a surf board strapped to the roof pulled up soon after. San Francisco may seem tame in comparison….
Susie and Phil xxx
