Another cool morning today with temps in the high 50’s. It was partly cloudy to start but then it went to mostly sunny for the rest of the day.
We did not have a great distance to go today but the road was winding and had sharp turns, at least for some of the California portion. Lots of redwood trees and we went into the National Redwood Park. About 2 miles in was the Lady Bird Johnson Visitor’s Center. We did not stop at the Visitor Center but continued on for maybe another 15 miles. The views were great. The redwood trees were all sizes with the largest being in the 5′ diameter range. After a while I looked at the GPS and the road continued meandering to the east. I turned around and headed back to the Hwy 101 so we could head north. The stop was well worth it.
As we moved north there were a lot of areas where the road had lots of redwoods on both sides and some were especially close to the road, maybe a foot or two off the pavement. One needs to pay attention so you don’t lane wander. A couple of areas had so many trees that the dash lights went to night mode for maybe ½ minute, when the daylight was blocked by the trees.
The Pacific views were great and the parking for the pull-outs got larger to accommodate more cars and trucks. Even when we entered Oregon. There was ample parking at the scenic turnouts. An interesting note was that after we entered Oregon, the gas prices were $0.80 to $1.00 a gallon lower than California”s Gas prices.
In Oregon the towns were generally a couple of blocks long except for the 3 large towns, Brookings, Gold Beach and Coos Bay. We stayed in Coos Bay for the night. When we arrived at the motel, we had all our information taken but chek-in wasn’t for another 1 ½ hours. We asked about a park and got a recommendation. The park was great. It had a small lake with lots of ducks and Kelso wanted to chase them back into the water. I think the ducks kept coming to shore because people feed them so they have that habit. Anyway Kelso met some of the local and got some good scritches and pats. It was time well spent. We walked the entire perimeter of the lake. The outside temp was about 75 F.
The 1st picture is from North of Arcata And the rest are from inside the National Redwood Park.
