1982 Cailfornia Redwoods (8/7/1982)

Saturday, August 7, 1982

It was at least 2:30 before we invited ourselves to take advantage of their floor, laying out our sleeping bags. We washed up, then put on insect repellent because of all the mosquitoes, and slept like logs. Kathy woke up at 6:00 and a little while later we put our things in the car. Returning to the house, the door was opened by Ken S, who went to get Aunt Bryn. We had breakfast of a glass of milk and a couple slices of buttered toast. Ken went off fishing and we left about 8:30, with Kathy driving us back to I-5 to head south. At Grant’s Pass we turned west on US Route 199, a two-lane road through forests. We arrived at the California border and had to stop at the Agricultural Inspection Station. Apparently since we are from New York, we had to open our trunk to prove we weren’t importing destructive pests in any fruits, vegetables, or dried flowers.

CA Certificate of Inspection

CA Certificate of Inspection back

Continued on US 199 through a winding valley with evergreens and a mountain stream. Soon we began seeing the tall redwoods with a few branches high up on the trunk; the Sequoia sempervire/California or Giant Redwoods, and drove through Jebediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

We reached the California coast at Crescent City and it was so foggy, we couldn’t see the ocean. We were back on US 101, headed south, and entered the Redwood National Park. There were stands of redwoods among many other trees. We stopped at Big Tree Wayside, where we photographed the base of a tree! Saw Cyanocitta stelleri/Steller’s Jays with their bright blue tails and friendly chipmunks, perhaps Neotamias townsendii/Townsend Chipmunks, who came right up to my toes.

Redwood National Park chipmunk

Redwood National Park Big Tree trunk

Redwood National Park tree trunks

Redwood National Park

Redwood National Park filtered sunlight

In Eureka, I took over driving and later turned off on CA SR 1 to see the Drive-Thru Tree. We paid $2 and drove into a redwood grove and saw the large tree with an arch cut into the trunk. We didn’t actually drive through it.

Drive-Thru Tree

Route 128 hills

Cathartes aura/Turkey Vulture

We stopped for gas, then continued on the unbelievably narrow and winding CA 1 across the coastal mountains. When we reached the coast, it was super foggy, and the road was still narrow and winding at times. We arrived in Fort Bragg about 18:00 and stopped so Kathy could call her cousin Curt who lives in San Jose to let him know we were going too arrive late. Because she charged the call to her parents, she decided to call her parents. So I called mine to confirm that I had charged a phone call to them when I called Aunt Bryn.

We drove over to the cute little old town of Mendicino, but it was very foggy. Turned east on CA 128, crossing back over the coastal mountains. This time the road was narrow and winding, but not so much up and down. At first we traveled through miles and miles of redwood forest, with people camping in certain areas beneath them. This was the kind of redwood forest we had imagined; tall tree trunks with the sun filtering through. After Boonville, we entered the area of dry hills; hills covered with yellowed grass and occasional trees and shrubs.

There were several interesting types of trees; old evergreens lining the road providing a canopy, and trees that lost their bark revealing reddish trunks. Also trees that looked like cork trees, except that the bark had not really been removed, and thin reddish trees with aspen-like leaves.

We saw areas were sheep were grazing, and a deer crossing area where we did see a deer, probably a Odocoileus hemionus/Mule Deer. We ended up seeing about seven deer along this road. Stopped to see a Cathartes aura/Turkey Vulture.

It was getting dark as we reached US 101 to head south. Behind us we could see a beautiful peach-orange sky. We started to see the lights of San Francisco, but had to round a hill before the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge popped into view. Since it was so foggy, we could see only a few street lights ahead as we crossed the bridge, and it was hard to tell that we were on a suspension bridge! The fog came in thick and rolling gusts. We paid the $2 toll and headed into San Francisco, finding Interstate 280 and zooming off in the fog. Upon leaving the San Francisco area, the fog cleared. The moon and stars came out as we neared San Jose and kept a sharp lookout for Saratoga Avenue. We took the exit for Sunnyvale-Saratoga and followed the directions given, looking for a hidden driveway off Saratoga. After going up and down the street three times, Kathy called out to a taxi driver sitting at a stoplight. He said to pull over and he would check his map. It was then that he cleared up our mistaken identity; we were not on Saratoga Avenue!

Okay, we returned to I-280 and after seeing a sign that we had entered San Jose, we took the exit for Saratoga Avenue, turned left on Saratoga, crossed a bridge, and looked for the hidden drive. The only driveway we saw was for the apartment complex called Franciscan Friars, and we weren’t sure about that. But after our second run down Saratoga Avenue, we decided to take that driveway to the Franciscan Friars. Kathy asked some residents where Northlake Drive was, and they told her to keep going and we would run into it! But first we passed an apartment building marked 481. We continued on to Northlake Drive, but decided that the 481 building was what we wanted. Kathy went to look for apartment number 201. It was a bit confusing; was he the 201 in the court marked 481, or the 201 in the building marked 481. Turned out to be the latter and finally a knock roused Curt who was watching TV.

I had seen a shooting star.

Next: San Francisco.