Eugene, OR - Garberville, CA
Time in Transit - 11 hours
Miles Driven - 396
View From Hotel - Don't ask
 |
| The view from our hotel at night. |
 |
| The daytime view is less pleasant because you can actually see the place. |
We pulled ourselves out of the deeply form-fitting mattresses and opened the front door to get some breakfast. The dank, musty smell of the room was immediately overpowered by the overwhelming smell of marijuana smoke.
I don't know where it was coming from, but I looked around the parking lot, fully expecting to see a late 70's van with Cheech and Chong in it.
 |
| There was no van, but this wagon was in the parking lot. It's possible that they were hiding in it. |
 |
| Parking lot selfie! |
After breakfast, we hopped in the van and headed off to California. While we were in Bozeman, we had decided to alter our route so that we could see Redwood National Park.
We drove through Oregon and into California, where the Redwoods awaited us. But before we got to the Redwoods, we found the California coast. Tori was very, very excited.
 |
| No, Tori. This is not the beach. Please be patient. |
 |
| No, Tori. This is not the beach either. |
 |
| THIS is the beach. Tori has assumed the universal "I am someplace!" pose that we would see again and again on this trip. |
We wandered around a bit to try to figure out how the west coast differed from the east coast.
Rocks?
Check.
Sand?
Check.
Water?
Check.
Kittens and Cats?
Wait...what? WHERE ARE ALL THE KITTENS AND CATS?!?
We could not, for the life of us, figure out why the beach wasn't teeming with kittens and cats, as every beach on the east coast is.
It was Tori who solved the mystery when she saw the sign on this building.
Without kittens and cats, the entire experience was feeling hollow until we heard the majestic burps of the seals, basking on a nearby rock.
 |
| Seals. Not kittens or cats. |
We had time for a quick selfie before we needed to drive off to look at giant trees.
 |
| Beach selfie without kittens or cats! |
 |
| And I took this picture because I am a super mature grown-up. |
And then we were back in Towanda where we found a text message from Alex.
"He's here."
For Alex, this is an expansive communication, full of rich language and nuanced meaning. To translate for those of you unfamiliar with his particular mode of communication, he meant,
"Dearest Family, whom I love and cherish,
I know that the continued, unexplained absence of my roommate has been a cause for wonder, if not concern for all of you. I am writing to alert you to the fact that he has, indeed, arrived at our dormitory. While we haven't yet had a chance to bond and become close, I'm sure that, over time, we can become great friends.
Please continue to have fun on your driving adventure. I am going to the dining hall now to look for waffles.
You loving son,
Alexander"
Naturally, we still had many, many questions, but, Alex would likely have his head in a pile of waffles for many hours so answers would be slow in coming.
While we waited, we gawked at big, big trees.
 |
| We never did find out what the mystery was. Which may have been the mystery, I suppose. A sort of meta mystery. |
 |
| Yup. They're big, all right. |
 |
| Really, really big. |
 |
| To give you a sense of scale, Tori is 47 feet tall. |
 |
| Artsy view. |
 |
| Tori tried to run away and build a tree house in this one. |
 |
| COLTON?!?! WE SOLVED THE MYSTERY OF WHERE COLTON WAS!!! |
 |
| Kerri, taking an action photo of the trees. |
 |
| Tori, asking me about how one might build a tree house in a tree that large. |
 |
| Spider girl. |
 |
| Just before the terrible accident. (kidding...) |
 |
| Oh, you think those trees are big? Well, wait until you see this one! |
 |
| It's so big, you could probably hang 50,000 Silver Dollars on it. |
 |
| Stats, for those of you at home keeping score. |
 |
| Snarky park rangers. |
 |
| I have no idea why I took a picture of this guy. |
 |
| When a tree falls in the forest, turn it into an attraction! |
 |
| Tori does her best Golem impression. |
Soon, it was time to leave and lead southward toward Abi's place.
 |
| Tori found this rock stuffed in a sign. |
 |
| We took it, to release into the wild later on the trip. |
One quick trip to the bathroom before leaving gave us a peek at the saddest sign in the world.
 |
| Oh, man. |
 |
| The newest park ranger has to go toilet fishing. I hope he has gloves... |
Much of the rest of the day was spent driving through the scorching heat of a California heat wave. We blasted the A/C.
 |
| No joke: It was over 100 degrees out and Tori put on a sweatshirt and a jacket. |
We stopped for dinner in Humboldt, but every restaurant had a wait of more than 60 minutes or a price per meal of more than 60 dollars. We drove on to Eureka and had a wonderful dinner at a fancy Italian place. It was, in fact, the second location of the place in Humboldt with the sixty minute wait. So, essentially, we were eating in the same restaurant, sixty minutes later.
It was like the Twilight Zone. But with garlic.
We drove for many, many more hours and eventually got off at an exit where there were a few hotels. The Best Western was offering rooms for a staggering $200+/night.
"But, what if I saw the sign outside?" I asked, bouncing my eyebrows.
"What sign?" asked the surly night clerk. "Is there something wrong with your face?"
"But, it's 1:00 in the morning. We're only going to be in the room for a few hours. Can we get a break on the price."
"No."
We drove up the road about a quarter mile and found a squalid little slice of hell called The Garberville Redwood Inn.
The lobby was a plywood shack, jammed in directly in front of the room we got. When I was checking in, the clerk saw me eyeballing the shack.
"Heh, heh," he chuckled. "Yeah. It didn't always look like this, you know. A car came shooting off the road a while ago and smashed through the front of the hotel."
He indicated the room where we would be sleeping. Then, to his credit, he saw that this may not be the best selling point for a guest.
"Oh, but don't worry," he said quickly. "It can't happen again. See? We put in these giant concrete posts."
He indicated some concrete posts, designed to stop incoming traffic.
I smiled weakly and took the key from him.
We slipped into the room, locked the door to help protect us from runaway cars, and tried to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment