Sorry we haven't blogged since we left Martinez! We'll actually be in Seattle today, so here I'll catch everyone up on our travels up the NoCal coast, and soon Lily will write about Oregon and Portland.
Before we left the bay area, Lily and I wanted to do a bit of tune-up work on Inigo. Our last afternoon in Martinez, we replaced the spark plugs, ignition wires, and distributor cap. The next day, we said our sad goodbyes to Lily's dad and Aunt and left.
As we accelerated up the onramp onto the highway heading north, Inigo let out some weird popping sounds, and the camper struggled to hit 50 mph! "Well," I said to Lily, "I guess we're not leaving today". We had to re-gap the spark plugs, and we found out that two of the ignition wires were swapped, so the plugs were firing in the wrong order, running on 6 cylinders instead of 8. Just a little snag, and luckily we were able to leave the next day, with the engine sounding better than ever. We were finally, finally ready to head up to wine country!
We didn't spend much time in Napa, as we had visited a couple months earlier. I did stage at Redd for a day, and I was able to absorb a good amount in a short period of time. I worked my own station, I was fed well, and could have worked there longer, but one day was enough for me. We decided to get back on the road, and I must say - the drive north through Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties was beautiful!
After a quick stop in Fort Bragg, we arrived in Eureka, a really nice little artsy port city in Humboldt county. A wonderful lady named Beth, whom we met on couchsurfing.com, hosted us in her driveway for a couple of nights. Eureka has a nice little pier area, and the downtown area has some cool art galleries and stores.
On our way up the coast after Eureka, we stopped at a tiny little oceanside town called Trinidad. The town is perched on top of a huge cliff overlooking the ocean, and the ocean shelf have these huge jagged rocks sticking up. There's a nice marina and the beaches are beautiful. We had a nice picnic lunch and then walked along the beach with Bebe off the leash - she loved it!
Our trip continued north through the slow, windy steep roads of US 101 along the coast. After some of the slowest, most challenging driving we've done on the trip, we spent a couple nights in the tiny town of Orick, where we stayed with another couchsurfer - a lifetime hippie named Steve. This guy was quite a character! He has three huge black guard dogs and six chickens, from which we cooked fresh eggs for breakfast on his wood-burning stove.
Why did we stay in Orick? It's smack in the middle of Redwoods National and State Parks! We did a few really nice hikes and saw some unbelievably large trees. We stood in the middle of a couple huge chimney trees - redwood giants that are hollowed out completely on the inside by multiple forest fires (only the bark remains, which is resistant to fire). We also picked a whole bunch of fresh bay leaves from some bay trees! The weather was pretty horrible, though - very cold and occasional rain, so we weren't able to see as much as we wanted to.
Oh, and the drive up from Crescent City to Grants Pass, OR along Rt. 199 was especially beautiful. The road goes along Smith River, and the water was this wonderful blue-green color.
-Ben
