This is the first day of our vacation trip report. We plan to send a report whenever we get to civilization (we are camping frequently), and will also try to attach a photo of a 100kbyte or so to most emails. If you want to be dropped from this mailing list, please let me know.
Today (Monday, 9-6-99) was a late start from home, about 11 AM (We sorta planned on a Sunday departure, but it took more time to get ready than we planned). San Diego via Miramar Road to 805-5-73-405-101 to Salinas. If you haven't taken the new Highway 73 toll road, do it! It has some great views and little traffic, all for $2.25. Big temperature swings; from near 90 to near 60 and damp. Went through several cycles of this depending on how near the coast we were. Lunch in Old Town Santa Barbara was very memorable -- sidewalk cafe, power outages, electric buses, great food and weather. Also on and offshore oil rigs, and flower fields where we Pondered Pensively while Parading Past a Pretty Plentiful Particularly Profuse Patch of Profoundly Peculiar, Potent Planted Palatable Poppies (yes, some of the drive was boring). The attached photo was taken as sunset caught us near Mission San Antonio de Padua near Camp Roberts. Founded July 14, 1771, by Father Junipero Serra. This was the third of the Alta California missions he founded. Highway 101 basically follows the route of the old missions.
A note for the car buffs in the crowd. The Bronco is loaded to the gills with a new roof rack. Gotta weigh at least 5500 lbs, but runs the freeways like a champ. The 5.0L fuel injection still has a strange problem that started just before we left (part of our delay). Sometimes when coming off a light throttle or switching from open loop to closed loop computer control, it stumbles badly. Best way to fix it is get on the gas and make it work. That clears it up. What's an Early Bronco trip without something to play with?
Day 2, Salinas to Arcata Darkness and tiredness caught us at Arcata CA, about
75 miles south of the Oregon border, for a daily total of 401 miles. An interesting day. Highway 101 ranges from
wide 4-lane divided to narrow winding 2-lane road over and over. Hard to make good time, but the scenery is world
class. Do you know why California is called the "Golden State"? It's not Sutter's gold strike,
it's thousands of square miles of golden brown grass laying like thick carpet over hundreds of rolling hills and
valleys. True story, and we just drove 401 miles of it. We began and ended the day at a cold and damp 59
degrees, but traveled most of the time in warm weather peaking at 100 degrees. The only difference is how far inland
you travel. Almost every mile we covered today had to do with growing crops. In Salinas it was onions, in
Gilroy it was garlic, in Napa and Mendocino counties it was grapes (wine), and now in Humboldt County it is trees
(lumber). About midday we crawled through San Francisco traffic (Do you know it's possible to get lost in
SF even with a dash mounted GPS receiver?), crossed the fog shrouded Golden Gate bridge and stopped long enough
to take the attached photo.
The best part of the day was being able to call Eileen's brother and his wife from the Golden Gate Bridge and arrange lunch together. They both work in the nearby Marin Country Civic Center (One of Frank Lloyd Wright's last designs. Take a tour someday if you can.). They picked a restaurant just off 101 and met us for a very pleasant and leisurely lunch. Tomorrow we enter the strange land beyond California where there be dragons. Our plans call for less civilization so we may not find any phone lines, but we'll be back!
Day 3 - Arcata to Eugene, 331 miles 11:30 PM. A long day, a good day. We are now
in deepest, darkest Oregon. Started the morning in foggy Arcata, CA by having a local tire shop rotate two tires
for me. Needed to get exactly the same diameter tires on the rear. My rear locking differential was doing too much
"power" steering with all the acceleration and deceleration on the coastal roads. The difference in diameter
was only around 2-4mm, but was driving me nuts. All of you that don't speak "locker" talk, forget this
paragraph. Cruising through the coastal forests, we drive right past a large herd of big Roosevelt Elk.
Wow. A quick U-turn, and we get some photos. The attached shot sure looked like the BOSS elk.
Next high point was lunch in Cresent City - the most northern "town" in CA. Mostly a commercial fishing village of 9,000 folks. We had a wonderful fresh caught halibut lunch with a view looking over the harbor. Looked nothing like San Diego! We then left highway 101 and turned inland for Oregon Cave National Monument. Got there just in time for the last tour of the day, and that turned out to be a blessing. The guide was a very smart geology guy, and he spent two hours with us instead of the usual hour and a few minutes. One tidbit to hang on to - we learned that the Oregon Cave is the only marble cave in america. All others are limestone. Better stop here. Can't improve on this story!