Current Location: Crescent City, CA, N 41 44.988', W 124 10.878', elev. 8 ft.

On saturday morning, I woke up in my car in Eureka, CA, and realized one thing that would prevent me from sleeping in my car too often, even though it was a huge money saver: no shower. Ecch. And I hate being dirty, but I powered through it. I found a public bathroom down by the beach and sort of washed my face and hair and brushed my teeth, but I'm pretty sure the hobo stench was still on me the rest of the day. While gassing up at a station in Eureka, I noticed Star Wars themed lottery scratch tickets. They were $5. Normally I would have jumped at the chance to buy one, but held off. Somewhere around in there, my car passed 80,000 miles, and during the day, went over 15,000 for the trip. I guess my initial estimate of 14,000 for the entire trip was way off.

I began driving north from Eureka on US 101, which very quickly began hugging the coast, just south of Redwood National Park. I was surprised how sparsely populated this area of California is, considering the beauty and the beaches. Driving north to the very southern end of the national park, I found a place called Humboldt Lagoons where I decided to pull in and take some photos. Humboldt Lagoons was just off this very small beach town. A huge fog had appeared in the area and when I got out to the beach, I stepped out onto one of the most beautiful coastlines I have yet to see. The beach was long, wide, and had some very pretty features. The sand was very dark, almost black, and very hot, even though the sun was not out at that moment. Closer to the water, the sand had very large pebbles instead of fine grains.



The huge pebbles did cut my feet a bit, and when I stepped into the water, it was very frigid, it felt like it was in the 50's, almost as cold as the water streaming from the Yosemite waterfalls, so the cold salt water didn't feel all that great in the tiny pebble cuts. The lack of people and the interesting features and the low fog makes this probably the prettiest beach I have seen, and the fog rolling up into the forested area reminds me very much of the rainforest coast in southern Alaska. In case you hadn't realized it by now, my whole trip in the "lower 48" is a quest to find beauty equal or better to that which I was introduced to in Alaska last summer. Its been rare and far between (until the past week) but worth it when I've found it. I spent a while at Humboldt Lagoon, just watching the surf come in, enjoying the smoke like darkness of the fog, and the dissipation of the fog a bit later.

I drove north some more, enjoying the breathtaking views of the coast drive, until I reached the visitor center of the national park, where I got out, and went into the museum and learned a bit about the coast redwoods. (Most of the national parks have little museum centers covering what you can find in the park, topographical maps of the park, and short films detailing the history. I just eat this stuff up.) I learned that the coast redwoods grow to be the tallest organisms on earth, and though they are a cousin of the giant sequoia, require far more moisture than their dry cousins. All the fog surrounding the coastal regions of northern California provide an excellent moisture source for the tall trees. I drove up the mountain road of the park into one of the groves and did a two mile hike along the redwood path, stopping to take many photos.



With the exception of width, the trees are similar looking to the giant sequoias, including many battle scars where they've survived blazing forest fires, and lived to tell the tale.



I find that in the national parks, my XM radio does not get clear signal. The antenna needs an unobstructed view of the southern sky and often in the parks, the trees are too tall, too close to the road, or the twisty mountain roads all may block the signal. I found my XM blocked in Redwood (N 41 19.273', W 124 02.479' elev 33 ft.) so I turned off my XM for the drive, and put the newest Coldplay album on the stereo through my iPod. Has anyone heard this album? It's actually very trippy and psychedelic, I'm convinced they wanted people to get high and give it a listen. With the music, and the cool breeze streaming into my car, the strobe effect of the sun through the trees as I drove, surrounded by all that green, I was just hypnotized, I felt very much at ease and relaxed. I got back to the coast, and with the incredible trees on the right side, and the ocean on the left, perhaps 200 feet below the road and low hovering clouds above the ocean on the left side as you hug the road, I felt as though I was driving over the world. I felt as though my car were floating and I was looking down on all the magnificence. Though the feeling lasted for 20 minutes at the most, it was far and away the best natural high I've ever had.



The clouds below the road

I was a bit jarred out of the experience when the road turned 3-D. If you think about it, three dimensions are not a desired quality in road surfaces! The pavement gave way to dirt on the very coast road, and the drive was very bumpy and up and down hills, bit the views were still worth. Its weird, but all the moisture makes the forest smell exactly like the swampy goodness of the Everglades. At the very end of the coast drive, I came upon another lagoon area, with a huge sand bar that causes a saltwater lake at low tide, joined by the mouth of the Klamath River, another spectacular view.



It was about 6 PM at this point, so I decided to head north to Crescent City to find a place to stay for the evening, then come back south to find a really nice beach to take sunset pictures. On the way I came across a tourist trap area called Trees of Mystery. I had to stop and take a photo of their giant statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Ox.



Crescent City is surrounded by the borders of the park on all sides, but it is a neat small little beach resort community. I found a place, got a quick dinner, then drove back to a beach I found that was about 2 miles north of Trees of Mystery. The beach was beautiful, and I got there just in time for sunset. I took many photos on the beach, and got some really great photos. The photos from that beach are my favorite at this point in the trip. I really lucked out and had a lot of "honeylight" to take good photos, and the black sand and rocks really helped.





View the rest of the photos here. Because of the combo of beautiful coast and amazing giant trees, Redwood National Park moves to number 2 on my list of national parks. I'll actually be writing out the full list soon and putting it on the site somewhere.