A few sea lion calls echoed in the mist, but once on the span, everything was invisible beyond the guardrail. I decided to follow Bay Bridge Betty’s advice and traveled through Charleston to check out the botanical gardens and coastal islands. After fighting through the fog that engulfed Charleston, I couldn’t have imagined it lifting to let the gardens work their magic. I dodged cyclists overwhelmed by the hills and clearly fearless of automobiles.
Even as the ticket booth swallowed a five dollar bill, Shore Acres State Park appeared deserted and closed. Only one other car sat in the voluminous lot. But the emerald oasis sparkled with all colors in the spectrum. Manicured greens gave way to bursts of yellow and purple.
They were a revelation, a fantastic remnant of an estate built a century ago then wiped away by a storm. The state bought the land and converted the gardens into a state park. Despite the fog, there were no vision problems when entering the gardens. Carefully manicured plots framed ponds with stone seabirds. A few amateur photographers skulked the grounds.
Returning to the mist, I continued to Cape Arago State Park, a promontory lookout on a group of islands forbidden to sightseers. Simpson Reef and Shell Island were nowhere to be seen anyway. The surf crashed hard against beaches deep inside U-shaped ridges, and the rocky fringes jutted out into the unknown Pacific. Fifty feet out, the fog kingdom ruled all. I would see nothing of the islands but heard hundreds of sea lions bellowing just under the lip of fog. Beauty might lie underneath, but I was not meant to view it.
The Cranberry Festival rerouted traffic around Bandon, the first town south of the Coos Bay area and a series of construction stops. Port Orford was quiet but welcoming, about what one would expect of the westernmost incorporated community in the Lower 48. Finally, the fog faded and the Pacific was unobstructed.
Signs on Port Orford’s asphalt pointed toward the ocean view. Port Orford’s beach was the opposite of Cannon Beach, with just a person or two wandering the white sand. A rugged collection of ships sat adjacent to the beach, the port which gave Orford its name. Gulls congregated around the best beach vantage points, attracted by what past visitors had donated to them.
The names of random beaches lost their importance. They were all part of the same coastline I had now traced 300-plus miles south to Gold Beach, where Highway 101 crossed the mouth of the Rogue River. Boats thickened those waters beneath another charming green bridge. Oregon spent the money to build artistic bridges 80 years ago, and the coast benefits to this day.
I sank up to my knees in some places, with the coastal mounts and boulders an unavoidable draw. Elsewhere I stumbled around rocks in the shallow sand. It was a giant’s playground, a blank slate plotted by impossibly strong forces. The river mouths swept out the driftwood and the rough ocean returned it to the beaches. But mountainous rock formations ruled these tides.
The coastal comparisons failed here. There’s nowhere I remember on the east coast when you can go from miles of beach to an highway hugging a cliff hundreds of feet above the water. I watched the waves rolled in from miles out; in some spots, there was just violent white stretching to the horizon.
With just coffee for breakfast, I wanted to stop but felt the urge to drive on. The redwoods awaited. My desire for a burger and a beer could be postponed. Leaving Brookings, the last major Oregon town heading south- it took Japanese fire during WWII - I crossed the border shortly after 1 p.m.
California conducted its standard fruit inspection, and the road galloped into California. Every liquor outlet touted its price on Black Velvet half-gallons. Without any fanfare Crescent City arrived soon enough. Its beaches were beautiful and its harbor was poorly suited for tsunamis – several people died when the Japanese wave slammed into the harbor earlier this year. Passing through Crescent City, taking advice from the pony-tailed ranger at the visitor center, I proceeded south on a hilly section of U.S. 101 to survey the best coastal outlooks.
The roadside trees expanded to unbelievable proportions and I knew the redwoods had arrived. The firs of northern Oregon and the sea-sculpted bonsai of the coast were instantly forgotten. These dimensions were impossible anywhere I had dwelled. Aside from the fossilized stumps of the Flourissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado, I had never gazed upon such massive trees. I stopped at a few early viewpoints, not yet realizing these old-growth groves towered over these giants.
I skipped most early stops to target the Klamath River. Nature viewing would offer nothing better than the overlook above the Klamath’s mouth. A month ago, a gray whale and her calf had stayed in the estuary, with the calf fleeing for the ocean and the mother dying soon after. An unusually clear day blessed the viewpoint, which rose 600 feet above the river’s mouth.
In the surf a few hundred feet from shore, black specks jumps and frolicked. Clearly something alive had camped out. The park ranger was not sure what types of whales they were, but I borrowed her binoculars, saw black and white flesh to confirm that a pod of orcas had taken up residence. A British couple camped out in Crescent City watched them with joy; two other men never looked up at their Blackberry phones. That led me to wonder: Why come to such a spot of natural beauty and fixate upon a square of technology? I would ask that question again and again.
I descended the steep road with a mind still reeling from whale sightings. People paid hundreds of dollars for ocean voyages, and I only had to borrow a pair of binoculars. Leaving the overlook, the Edwin Drury Scenic Parkway arrived quickly. An alternative to Route 101, it ran through the Prairie Creek Redwood State Park and a good slice of old-growth redwoods.
Here the forest that substituted for the moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi became apparent. The road was lightly traveled and the forest loops were even emptier. It was easy to get lost under the steep canopies and minimal light. I touched many of the big trees, walked through the holes that forest fires burned at their bases, and just relished in the time alone among giants. I rarely felt such peace only a few hundred feet from the road.
Civilization had little sway in this protected forest, just 5 percent of the original 2 million acres that dominated the California coast. In a few decades, man’s lust for bug and fire resistant wood toppled all but scattered groves of old-growth redwoods. Like the bison in Yellowstone, we were so close to losing them forever.
Stopping for a stamp at Prairie Creek’s little headquarters, the ranger noticed my notebook bore a Yoda stamp, which I only had on there as postage in case I ever lost it and someone wanted to mail it back. I made a feeble Ewok comment and moved on. I wanted big trees, not talk of George Lucas.
As I zipped through Orick and onto the Humboldt Lagoons, I passed the elk that caused motorists to swarm. I had seen herds in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming, so the draw was minimal. Realizing I missed the turnoff for the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, I had to break back north before I ended up in Eureka sipping brews at the beer the tattooed fisherman recommended.
The Lady Bird grove, which contained some of the park's biggest trees, was well worth the one mile forest loop. I was alone for most of it, aside from a clutch of birds used to tourist food. The former First Lady was there for the dedication in 1969, and a plaque in front of one monster tree marked the occasion.
The temperature dropped and the afternoon sun dappled on patches of redwood trunk. If you didn't feel and insignificant in the redwood forest, you were somewhere else. Some trees dated back to the time of Christ. The unique conditions along California's North Coast made their phenomenal growth possible.I had only hours in their grasp, but could have spent years and never grown tired of craning my neck to examine their heights.
Route 101 was almost thick with hitchhikers. For a place with so few cities, it seemed an unlikely draw. Most with their thumbs in the air sported dreadlocks and homemade clothes; others felt like college students out on an adventure before fall term. I passed one group of well-soiled five 20-somethings and wondered how they planned to move along with so large a party. Would a flatbed straight out of On the Road slow and urge them to pile on? It just might have. Thirty miles from Crescent Beach, where I first sighted the party, I spotted them walking along the grass. Olympic medalists could not have covered that distance in so short a time.
A beautiful sun glided for the horizon, bathing the Del Norte redwoods and the white beaches in golden rays. My body ached from the mileage and my stomach cried foul at its emptiness. I checked into the Curly Redwood Lodge and prepared for a peaceful eve to match the afternoon.
There’s not much to say about Crescent City, but it was not the gateway to the redwoods as advertised. Sure, a mile or two in any direction beyond its boundaries and the giant trees emerged, but the city was unlike those on the Oregon coast. That said, I enjoyed my accommodations at the Curly Redwood Lodge, a hotel of 36 units constructed from the wood of a single redwood tree. An older couple ran it, the sign out front advertised no vacancy, and I parked immediately in front of my hotel room. There would be no chain hotels on this voyage, only the kindness of local operators.
Digression: My hotels in North Bend, Crescent City and Crater Lake all had keys, and this was the first time in probably a decade when I stayed in a room without a swipe card. Keys I found easier to remember than those credit cards that didn’t always fit the room.
The city’s culinary (ahem) culture fared less well. After 10 minutes without acknowledgement, I walked out of a restaurant billing itself as the city’s best seafood location. Searching the blocks of downtown, nothing appetizing emerged. So I settled for a hodgepodge dinner of picnic items from the local grocery and a six-pack of Lost Coast Great White.
I chased my poor man’s meal with a long conversation with Ben Crites and a walk along the harbor to admire the shades of sunset and the framing provided by the lighthouse on Crescent City’s outer harbor. It was only visible in silhouette, but with the vibrant twilight surrounding it, no further color was necessary.
1 comment:
I've been so envious of your travels of late.
Post a Comment