Coastlines   Where land meets sea is one of the most thrilling sights on our Water Planet. (It’s also called Earth, but remember, the surface is 70% water.) It’s the transition from one zone to the other that’s so spectacular--sometimes cliffs over the ocean, with breakers below, other times wide expanses of beach with waves slowly trying to reach inland, then giving up and returning home to the sea.

I’ve seen my share of coastlines from the water side, say the Norwegian coast, the Baltic, the Mediterranean; in North America the New England coast and the coast along the Southeast. As for seeing coastlines from the land side, I’ve also done my share of driving along selected coasts in Europe and along the east coast of North America. My Gulf Coast experience remains spotty, primarily along the west coast of Florida, plus the Biloxi-Mobile area (2008/2). I’ve never gone west of there to, say, the long Gulf Coast of Texas.

But it’s the Pacific Coast that’s the topic here. From the water side, Beverly and I sailed between Seattle and the Alaskan panhandle along the Canadian coast. In January I’ll be on the Queen Victoria from New York coming out of the Panama Canal up the Central American and Mexican coasts to LA. On the land side, Beverly and I drove south from San Francisco (2001/10) along Big Sur to Los Angeles and San Diego, even Tijuana, so we’ve seen that quite well. The cliff views of the ocean off Big Sur are the most memorable. That left for me the drive UP the Pacific coast NORTH of San Francisco, all the way to Seattle, which fit in well with a discussion of the Northwestern U.S., as well as of the Oregon Trail.

Into this NW trip was inserted a side trip to Hawai’i (only my second trip there since 1970), to complete the revisit of all U.S. regions that started, almost by accident, with the revisit of Alaska (2005/13). After the side trip, the Northwestern U.S. revisit was completed through more of the Northwest by a trip on the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago, then connecting in Chicago to the Lake Shore Limited to New York.

[I’d like to make clear that I’m not avoiding areas away from the coast. In the past, in the Northwest we visited Salt Lake City, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Teton NPs, and Mounts Shasta, Hood, Ranier, and Baker. The only place I’d have liked to have revisited was Crater Lake NP in Oregon, especially since it isn’t too far inland from the Oregon Coast, and since I had some extra time. However, it was the season that did in that thought. I read that the rim drive around Crater Lake would be closed by mid-October, which didn’t make the effort worthwhile, especially since I’d already been there. But now that I just visited Ngorongoro Crater in Africa (2008/12), it’s worth discussing Crater Lake a bit.

What is now referred to as Mount Mazama was a contemporary of Mounts Shasta and Ranier, and was possibly 12,000 ft / 3658 m high. It erupted 7700 years ago, and the collapsed volcano left a caldera some 4000 ft / 1220 m deep and 6 mi / 10 km wide. This caldera partially filled with rainwater, resulting in Crater Lake. (With “Crater” Lake, as with Ngorongoro “Crater”, there is confusion between a crater left by a falling asteroid and a caldera caused by a volcanic eruption. People seem to like to call calderas craters, it seems. On the other hand, I’ve also heard that what is left by a smaller eruption WITHIN a caldera can genuinely be called a crater. Go figure.) Crater Lake, at 1932 ft / 589 m, is the deepest lake in the US and the seventh deepest in the world.]

San Francisco   The last time we were in San Francisco (2001/9) I talked about the hills, the cable cars, the earthquake and fire, so I’m not going to repeat much of that background. This time I had two days, and divided them up into (1) public transportation and (2) private transportation—my Zipcar (2008/8).

Having just discussed grids elsewhere, it’s necessary to discuss the highly unusual San Francisco grid. All streets form parallel and perpendicular grids (and are unbending when they reach one of the many hills, which explains why there are streets going so steeply up hillsides, sometimes becoming so steep that they disappear and change into pedestrian stairs.) But the problem is—there are two grids.

Market Street is the center of things in San Francisco. It runs at an angle southwest from the famous Ferry Building at its upper end. If the Ferry Building is at 2 o’clock, Market Street runs toward the 8 o’clock spot.

Market Street has always divided the “right” part of downtown from the “wrong” part. In the neighborhoods northwest of Market lies almost everything of importance that visitors want to see. All streets here run north-south or east-west (forming a pattern of squares), in other words, out of step with Market. This, however, has a lovely affect on the streetscape, where every intersection on the north side of Market involves three streets, a N-S, an E-W, and Market. It’s a pleasure walking along Market and admiring the architecture of so many triangular buildings.

But the grid gets more complex. The less desirable (but today, rapidly up-and-coming) part of town has always been southeast (called “South”) of Market. This area has a different grid, where all streets are parallel or perpendicular to Market, resulting in a diamond pattern on the map. So as you walk along Market, you see these interesting intersections on the north side, and regular streets on the south. Many times the intersections to the north and to the south do not align, but frequently they do. Then you get a complex intersection (difficult when driving) that looks like a Y with Market as the crossbar, pretty much like a sign for Japanese yen (￥), and these complex intersections are attractive, too. Then, west of Van Ness (2001/9), the streets south of Market all bend and turn N-S and E-W, so outside of downtown the grid becomes a single one pretty much of all squares and no diamonds.

For maybe the third time I stayed at the Andrews on Post Street. It’s a boutique hotel in a building that survived the earthquake, and is very conveniently located. The first day it was just steps to Market, which I walked up to admire the boulevard that it is, up to the elegant Palace Hotel, built before the earthquake purposely on the south side of the street to promote that area. I then went back to the Y intersection where Powell, with its cable car, meets Market, where there is a Muni booth, and I bought myself a Muni Daypass. A round trip (or two trips) on a cable car is $10. For $11 you get a daypass that covers cable cars and streetcars (also buses). This was to be a streetcar day, with a bit of cable cars thrown in at the end. Streetcars alone are only maybe a couple of bucks, but the pass covered everything.

The many streetcar lines used to run on the surface of Market, and given the curious intersections of side streets, traffic was very difficult. But when BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, the suburban rail service) was built under Market at a low level, the streetcar lines (except for a “historic” one) were put underground at an upper level. I started by riding the M line the length of what is now the Market Street Tunnel, and then under Twin Peaks Mountain, to emerge in a pleasant neighborhood on the other side; then backtracked. I took the K-T line to the east side of town to what is now the Caltrain Depot. This is the only rail station actually in San Francisco (and not over in Oakland or Emeryville), and the suburban trains here go south down the length of the peninsula. The third line I took turned out to be a pleasant feat of serendipity and a highlight of the day.

I noted on the map that the N line went out to the ocean, and thought that might be a nice thing to try. It went down the Market Tunnel, emerged and zigzagged around some hills, and then went straight west down a street two blocks below Golden Gate Park. The name of this long street happened to be Judah Street, and I knew that that was already a good sign. (I just relish saying his name, and keep repeating it: Ju-dah, Ju-dah.… The sound of the name intrigues me, and keeps reminding me of Stephen Foster’s 1850 “Camptown Races” which include the words “Doo-dah! doo-dah!”.) It was a gorgeous autumn day as I got out at the end of the line. I had hoped that the water would be visible from the street or that there would be a boardwalk, but at the end of Judah, where the beach highway, Grand Boulevard, crossed it, there was a big sand dune blocking the view. Was there a paved path? No, you had to walk through the sand over the dune. Here I was, fully dressed, wearing a jacket in the autumn weather, with Michelin in hand, right in the middle of a session of streetcar riding, ready to give up. But I was wearing sandals. So I took off and carried my Birkenstocks, and rolled up my pant legs, walked over the dune, and onto the beach.

The rather wide dry part of the beach had lots of people on blankets, since it really wasn’t all that cool. Well, I’d walk a little more. The wet part of the beach was about as wide a one as I’d ever seen, and I kept on walking. The water was w-a-a-y out, and waves would come in irregularly, and gently. Finally a wave reached me and I stepped into the water. I had recently stood in the Atlantic Ocean in the Dominican Republic, and here I had stepped, just ankle-deep, into the Pacific—fully dressed, and with Michelin in hand. It seemed so unusual and unexpected—pure serendipity, that I relished the moment on this pleasant day.

Coming back to Grand Boulevard there was fortunately a rest room, and I wasn’t the first one to wash sand off his feet in one of the sinks. I then returned to my alter ego for that day of streetcar rider. And getting back on to the Judah car still slightly moist was part of the pleasant experience. (Judah, doo-dah!)

Back on Market I came upstairs out of the tunnel to ride the F line, the historic one. It’s the only one left on the surface of Market, and it runs only vintage streetcars, from many cities, in regular service. Given the various origins, each car is just about a different color. The route then swings off Market around the revitalized Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf.

From there I walked over to get on the Powell-Mason line of the cable cars, one of three surviving lines. The problem today is the tourists. Even with the jacked-up price of $5 a ride, there was still an hour’s wait to get on. On that first ride I worked it out so that I was one of those who stood in the hanging-on position outside, which I hadn’t done in a long time. You stand on a running board facing inward where people are sitting, facing outward. It also requires a judicious placement of legs between standees and sitters. After I stopped at the Cable Car Museum, on my continuing ride going back to the hotel I rode inside.

Here on YouTube is shown the other fork of that line, the Powell-Hyde car leaving Fisherman’s Wharf: San Francisco Cable Car

Again, the Cable Car Museum is also the Powerhouse for the cables. Although there are three surviving lines, there are four cables, since the California Street line has two, one for its east end and one for its west end. In the basement you see the four cables feeding out onto the various routes, and on the main level you see the huge wheels that power them. Here, each of the four cables has three vertical wheels, each taller than a person. The cable runs in a figure-8 pattern around the pair of front ones for traction, and the third large wheel further back keeps the tension in the cable. The cables run at a constant 9.5 mph / 15.3 kph.

You can see it all on YouTube: Cable Car Museum & Powerhouse

An exhibit shows how many, many cities in North America and Europe had cable cars when cable cars had their day. Also, how many, many more routes there were in San Francisco at one time. It was the earthquake (and fire) that really did them in. Cable cars were already an aging technology then, and when it was time to rebuild, most routes were replaced by streetcars. The last cable car route that closed down in San Francisco lasted until the 1940’s. Later, they wanted to close down the rest, and a citizen revolt saved the remaining lines, now a moving National Monument.

My second day was the Zipcar day. I had booked the car months ago online from home. A nearby public lot (one of many) where Zipcar had a half-dozen cars was across the street and ½-block away from the Andrews. I opened up the car with my Zipcard in the windshield transponder and off I was. In the evening I just parked the car in the lot, locked it, and left it, to be later billed online. Piece o’ cake.

Without a doubt, my first stop with a car had to be Russian Hill, one of my favorite San Francisco locations. I first went up Nob Hill, not by the steepest streets, but from the west, up slow-rise California Street. Nob Hill is flashy, with a cathedral, a large mansion now a private club, and both the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins Hotels. It’s very ritzy and it leaves me cold. I drove down Nob Hill to the north and then up Russian Hill. But that is easier said than done.

I knew I wanted E-W Vallejo Street, which is at the summit, so I went north on Mason and turned left on Vallejo. Mistake. At this point, Vallejo goes one half-block west then becomes a pedestrian staircase to the top because of the steepness. On maps Vallejo is an E-W line across downtown, but in San Francisco, don’t make the mistake—as I still do after all this time—that streets go through. So I looped counterclockwise to the north and took Jones south to Vallejo, near the summit. Jones, needless to say, was very steep uphill. But the part of Vallejo I wanted, the hill’s summit, was STILL broken away from the rest, at the top of a wall that had two drives up either side, and you finally reached the one-block section of Vallejo that’s actually at the summit. But it’s worth it. That upper block is filled with charming houses, and looks a lot more real than Nob Hill. At the end of this one-block stretch of Vallejo is a wall looking over a park that includes that pedestrian staircase coming up from the east. The view from 360 ft / 110 m is over much of the city, although unfortunately, some apartment buildings below, or on the slope, are high enough to interrupt the view. Yet it’s idyllic.

And it reeks with history. I had discussed (2001/8) the Russian settlement of Fort Ross up the coast, also mentioning Russian Hill here. Apparently in the early 1840’s some Russian fur traders and sailors from Fort Ross had been in this area and some had died, and were buried at the top of this hill in a small cemetery. A few years later came the California Gold Rush of 1849, and arriving settlers in the 1850’s found the Russian cemetery here and the hill got its name. Some graves in the cemetery were moved, but others were just covered over.

Then I had a very pleasant surprise. Since I was here last in 2001 (when we went back to New York days before Nine Eleven), a private organization arranged for the installation, on 6 June 2005, of a metal plaque on the stone fence at the edge of the park commemorating the Russian presence here, and the effort was supported by the government of the Russian Federation. The plaque, in Russian on the left and English on the right, declared this to be

For the first time, with this proper infusion of the appropriate language, I had a real feeling of the historical presence. I also learned the word холм, and had an immediate thought. There was a lot of Swedish influence on Russia during the wars between King Karl and Peter the Great. I can’t verify it as a fact, but this is an “educated” guess, that the word холм/kholm is simply the Swedish word holm, as it appears in, say, Stockholm, borrowed by Russian. Anyway, in my mind, Русский Холм it is, and Русский Холм it shall remain.

Within the Russian text, which I quite frankly, needed the English text to even pick words out of, I found something else that interested me. We speak of the great “Companies” of the 1600’s that were responsible for so much exploration, such as the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch West India Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company. The text pointed out that these fur traders and sailors were part of the Russo-American Company or

Actually, Русский Холм has two summits. As mentioned, the taller one, at Vallejo and Jones, is 360 ft / 110 m, but two blocks west and five blocks north is the lower summit, at Hyde and Lombard, at 294 ft / 90 m. This one is also well known, but people don’t think of it as Russian Hill, they just call it Lombard Street. What they mean is “the fun block of Lombard Street”, since Lombard, like Vallejo, runs across downtown, though Lombard runs almost uninterrupted. But that first block to the east off Hyde is the one that, in 1922, because of its natural 27% grade, was made into a tourist attraction by altering the roadway to a one-lane, one-way series of eight switchbacks paved in red bricks, with large planted areas in the curves. It’s ¼ mi / 400 m long, and the speed limit is 5 mph / 8 kph. Some houses have tiny driveways off the curves. Everyone with a car has to drive down this (one-way) block of Lombard, and I did it again for the umpteenth time. What no one points out is that the next block of Lombard down the hill seems almost as steep—or, that this is still part of Russian Hill. Watch the action on YouTube: Lombard Street Switchbacks

I went back to three other favorite places. First, to Alamo Square, west of downtown. This is a park, but on a hill with a nice view of downtown. Even more pleasing, is that lined up on Steiner Street on the east side of the square is a row of some half-dozen Victorian houses over whose roofs you see the downtown view. The houses are sometimes called the Painted Ladies. I then drove to the northwestern end of San Francisco, to Cliff House. Cliff House has been redone completely several times since the early 20C, most recently since my last visit. It how has a couple of upscale restaurants. Still, there’s a nice view from the cliff to the waves below.

After Alamo Square, fog began rolling in from the Pacific, which half-defined the rest of the day, depending on how far west I was. I saw the Cliff House area in the fog, then drove south on Grand Boulevard along the beaches, crossing Judah (sing it). Finally, in the southern part of town, I went up again to the top of Twin Peaks (under which I had ridden the streetcar the day before). I usually come up the front way, but for the first time I entered it from the south entrance, and left to the north. From Twin Peaks I’ve often been able to look down and see the fog rolling in from the west. This time, the fog almost reached the Twin Peaks summit, so down below, only downtown was visible. I ended up that evening in the Pacific Heights area, and went back to Katia’s Russian Tea Room. Beverly and I went there last time and had enjoyed it. I ordered my standard favorites, and saw there was kissel’ for dessert. It’s a red-berry pudding, very typical, and I ordered it. This seemed to impress Katia, because she came out of the kitchen, sat down at my table, and we had a long conversation about how her kissel’ recipe is an old family one, and we discussed Russian food in general.

I suppose my two defining recollections of San Francisco this trip will be walking from the streetcar into the ocean, plus the Russian references.

Prius   Everything is near the Andrews, including car rental places. Avis is across the street and Hertz, who had given me a better price, is two blocks away. I would normally not mention anything about my 12-day car rental, but—talk about serendipity—this turned out to be a fun highlight of the trip.

The agent said, “Oh, they’ve decided to save you money by giving you a Prius.” I knew it was the Toyota hybrid and that people had said nice things about it, but this was a long-distance rental, and I wasn’t eager to start learning anything new. But he said he’d show me what to do. We went over to the red Prius, with its steeply sloped front window, making it very aerodynamic. He gave me “the keys” and sat down in the passenger seat next to me. “The keys” turned out to be a black plastic square hanging onto a key ring. It had the familiar open-and-close buttons for the doors and trunk on it (which turned out to be unnecessary, and which I never needed to use). It had no visible key protruding from the plastic, although upon closer inspection later on, there was an emergency standard key hidden inside. He told me to put “the keys” into my pocket, where, as it turned out, they stayed virtually the entire 12 days.

He told me to step on the gas pedal and push the Power button on the dashboard. The car came to life—but you heard nothing. All the dashboard “dials” were large digital readouts, including the speed, which I found very helpful. These readouts were not hidden behind the steering wheel but were WAY up front under the long slope of the windshield. When driving, you only had to look down slightly from the window to see your speed, not almost down into your lap.

The gearshift was a small, bulbous lollipop on the dashboard. If you moved it from home position left and down, you went into drive, left and up put you into reverse, and either D or R appeared in that distant readout. Curiously, the lollipop always returned to its home position and didn’t stay in D or R. To park, you pressed a special Park button on the dash, then Power, and that was it.

On the center of the dash was a small screen, about the size of a paperback book held sideways. When you were in Reverse, you saw a TV picture of what was behind you, accompanied by the incessant beep-beep you hear when trucks back up. I suppose you need that since the Prius is so quiet, but it was the only feature I found highly annoying. In parking lots I found I’d drive forward if in any way possible, just to avoid that sound when backing up.

When in Drive, the screen showed a constantly changing schematic of whether power was going from the gas engine to the wheels, or from the battery to the electric motor to the wheels, or, most fun, if power was returning from the wheels to the electric motor and battery when you were coasting or coming to a stop. It was interesting enough so that I’d have liked to have been in the passenger seat to have watched it more easily. It also gave a constantly changing miles-per-gallon readout.

When you switched from electric to gas, you did hear the car somewhat, but otherwise it was rather quiet. I found later that Oregon is the only state other than New Jersey where you’re not allowed to pump your own gas. When I pulled into my first station there, I waited a while until an attendant showed up. When he finally came running, he said “I didn’t hear you pull in!”

There was absolutely no power problem. I could speed up to pass cars easily. While I didn’t happen to go up any of San Francisco’s hills as I was leaving town, when in Seattle later, I had no trouble climbing its hills, which actually rival San Francisco’s, believe me.

In this 12-day drive from San Francisco to Seattle I stopped for gas five times, always when it was down to about ¼-tank. Each time I took 6-8 gallons / 23-30 liters, and the total cost was between $19 and $22.

But the most fun were “the keys”. I was a little confused how the car started without a key, but didn’t worry about that at first. What did concern me was when, at the first stop, I locked the door (and trunk) by pressing the little black button on the door handle. It locked, and then I tried it to be sure—and it opened. The trunk did the same. How could I travel with unlocked doors and trunk? Especially when the car doesn’t need a key to start? Crisis! Ruined trip! Why did they stick me with this car? So I got out the manual. Silly me. This is the 21C.

I remember the early 20C when you had to physically stick a key in every car lock. Then came the late 20C when you could lock and unlock the car remotely by those two buttons. But we are now in the 21C, which is apparently the “Look, Ma, no hands” century. As it turns out, “the key” in my pocket was unlocking the doors for me. In essence, when it was me (with “the key” in my pocket) walking up to the car, it “knew” me and unlocked itself, just as it “knew” me and started itself.

I was still incredulous, so at the first hotel that evening, I brought my bag in and left the car key in the room. Then I went back outside and tried to act the thief and open the car. Sure enough it didn’t know me and didn’t open. But I’m hard to convince, so I went to the room, got the key, and put it back in my pocket and my new “friend” knew me and unlocked itself. Welcome to the 21C.

The name Prius is a variation of the word “prior”, implying the car is ahead of what’s coming in the future. Buy a Prius? If I were in the market to buy a car—which I’m not—I’d buy a Prius in a heartbeat, although its price is a bit higher than some other cars. It brings fun back to driving, helps the environment, saves money at the pump—what more could you want?

Northern California Coast   This drive covers the coastal area between San Francisco, where I picked up the Prius, to Seattle, where I dropped it off. This section will deal with the Northern California segment of that coast.

I drove north over the Golden Gate Bridge, swung over to the coastline I’d largely be following most of the way north, and first passed Muir Woods where we’d gone to see the redwoods on our last visit (2001/9). I stopped again for a moment in Bodega (also 2001/9) for another quick look at the Potter School of 1873, used by Hitchcock in The Birds of 1962. The ornate Victorian building was a bed and breakfast for a time, but I understand it’s now a private residence with a small museum. After that, it was fun once again to pull onto the grounds of Fort Ross (2001/8), today a State Park. Thrilling as I still find it, I didn’t need to actually tour it again. My goal this time was the town of Mendocino.

MENDOCINO Mendocino might be the prettiest town on the coast. It’s a small Victorian village of New-England-style architecture that extends out onto a foggy headland. It was originally a 19C lumber town, because of the nearby redwood forests. The clapboard buildings have steep gabled roofs, and there are numerous wooden water towers projecting above the houses. They were originally windmill-powered, but now the windmills are gone and the pumps are electrically powered. One unique quality is that its Main Street, which has a row of historic buildings on its north side including the Mendocino Hotel, has virtually nothing on its south side, which is at the edge of a cliff looking over the bay below. On approaching Mendocino from the south, as I did, you can pull over and see the town above the cliff, especially Main Street, waiting for you.

I had booked two nights in the 1878 Mendocino Hotel, since I had that extra time to spare. The wooden hotel (sprinklers have been added) belongs to the Historic Hotels of America. Its charming façade includes a terrace with views over the cliff. Although my room was in the back (only suites are up front), a walkway extended around the building upstairs, so I had direct access to go and sit outside for a few minutes. But the high point of the hotel was its lobby, with antique deep-colored Victorian furniture and décor. There was a gas-assisted wood-burning fireplace, and I spent many hours near it working on my laptop, the lobby being the only wifi hotspot. I had found two quality restaurants in Mendocino, one for each evening, the Moosse Café and the Café Beaujolais. The meals were superb, and at the Moosse, I got talking with a nearby couple, who were nice enough to ask me to join them at their table.

Aside from the foggy coast itself, the major item of interest along the northern portion of the Pacific coast is the redwoods. Mendocino had been a logging town and logging is still going on, but in contemporary times, large swaths of these trees have been saved for the future.

Redwoods are the fastest growing of the softwood trees, known for their prodigious height. They can grow up to three feet / one meter a year, and in a century a redwood forest of considerable height can reproduce itself. They are referred to as coast redwoods, since they only grow along a strip near the Pacific coast from Big Sur south of San Francisco to Oregon, but they are largely a California phenomenon. They need the moderate temperatures and high rainfall that this area provides. And don’t forget that fog that’s so typically rolls off the ocean in San Francisco, Mendocino, and all other areas and towns along this coast. Redwoods thrive in this fog belt and can get up to ONE-THIRD of the moisture they need from the frequent fog. They can grow as tall as a 36-story building, yet they have no tap root—no root goes straight down, but many fan out in all directions at about a depth of 1-2 yards/meters to support the tree, frequently spreading out scores of yards/meters. If a tree should fall naturally, or be cut down, these roots will sprout new trees, often forming a circle around the location of the mother tree. Such daughter trees are called a circle of angels.

My first foray into the redwoods (other than at Muir Woods in 2001) was OK, but less than thrilling. Since I had extra time, I had booked a ride on the Skunk Train. This had been a logging railroad since 1885 from the coast at Fort Bragg into the redwoods, connecting inland with other rail routes. It also had a steam passenger service from 1904 to 1925, but in that year they converted to self-powered rail cars with gas engines. These let off enough of a smell so that people along the route said at the time “you can smell ‘em before you can see ‘em”, and started calling them skunk trains. Later they had more modern equipment, but the name stuck. Today, in season, they run restored railcars for tourists, but when traffic is light, as when I was there, they run a diesel motorcar. It was pleasant enough, but long, running at 29 mph / 47 kph into the forest and out again over four hours.

Driving north afterwards, I came across Humboldt Redwood State Park and its Avenue of the Giants. Essentially, when the more modern road came through, the old road was left as a 32-mile / 52-km alternate through the forest. It was fascinating. There was little traffic, since it’s now a side road, and for a while there’d be daylight and normalcy, and then you’d drive into a grove—the trees tend to grow in these groups—and you’d be in half-light under huge trees reaching up to the canopy above. I stopped in a grove, and stood on the needled forest floor watching the silent, breathtaking grove. Driving off, you continue through the groves that went on and on.

EUREKA I had planned a stop in Eureka, since it was a good mid-point between redwood parks. I wanted to spend two nights there at the new-old Carter House to use up more extra time. The very enjoyable Carter House needs more explanation.

In 1982 people named Carter built in Eureka a copy, from original plans, of an 1884 Victorian San Francisco house that had been destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire. They lived in it for a while, then turned it into a hotel. Next to it they restored two small, genuine local Victorians to be included in the hotel, and diagonally across the intersection they built a proper hotel with lobby and restaurant. I had asked for one of the rooms in the restoration, which was painted a terra-cotta and golden cream. Although I knew the history of the restoration, only when I got there did I read more details, and found out that the original in San Francisco had been at Bush and Jones. Checking my map, I noted that if you walk down Jones from Bush, past Sutter, you come in these two blocks to Post and Jones, where the Andrews Hotel is! Knowing that pleased me a lot, since I could relate the neighborhood of the Andrews to the fire.

Although I could have the run of the public rooms of the restoration, it was more convenient to go across the intersection to the lobby of the hotel and do my work, since I had a full free day. The restaurant was very good, and one night I had their five-course tasting menu, each paired with an appropriate wine. The lobby had a wood fire, there were complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres between 5-6, and after dinner, cookies and a selection of teas before the fire.

Working during the lobby in the afternoon, I got to know Jesse at the reception desk, who was working his way through a local college. He had a political science class, and had some questions about articles in the New York Times. It’s always interesting for me to talk to people still starting out in life.

Just two blocks away was the 1886 Carson Mansion, now a private club. It is without a doubt the largest and most spectacular Victorian mansion I’ve ever seen. It’s located at the end of a major street, has a huge tower, multiple turrets, balustrades, columns, and it all comes together perfectly. It’s two-tone green, a forest green interspersed with lime green. I’ve never seen anything like it.

The next stop north was Redwood National Park, which is a World Heritage Site. The place to go within the park is the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, which has a trail through the woods of about an hour. There were occasional groups of people setting off, and I parked and got ready to join them. Then I saw the sign saying that this is bear and lion country! Try not to walk alone on the trail! Keep on making noises as you go along! Well, that’s about all I needed. You mean I made it through Africa--only to be attacked in California? Well, there were enough people, and after a while I got chatting with two twenty-somethings on the trail about this and that. I mentioned I’d stayed at the Carter House in Eureka, then that I’d spoken to someone named Jesse about a political science course. Well! Jessica said she knew him, since they were both in the same political science class. Small world.

A bit up the road was the Redwood Creek overlook, at 2100 ft / 640 m. Tall as the redwoods were, from here you could look down on them, over to the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

I should also mention that, all along on these coastal roads there are stopoffs to both look off the cliffs at the waves, and to stop at beach level to look at the ocean.

I ended the day in Crescent City, my last stop in California. The hotel I had booked was located right above the waves, and with a direct view of a nearby lighthouse. The flashing of the lighthouse at night was not disturbing, but comforting.

Crescent City is near the northern border of California, and I crossed into Oregon early the next day. I stopped the car on the state line to absorb the significance of this particular border as it pertains to the Oregon Territory, which is up next for discussion.