Thursday, August 6, 2009

San Fransisco to the Red Woods

After another too short stay with Bob and Fabianne, we continued up the coast. Our goal was to camp in the red wood forest that night, so in the interest of time we left the PCH and got on route 101, with the intention of getting back on it to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. San Fransisco was much closer to Moss Landing than I had thought, and before I knew it the Golden Gate was comming out of the fog.

There was a little tourist pull off, so naturally we took it and busted out our cameras.

That's Alcatraz.

Charley was so scared!

There's a rainbow at the end of the bridge:

We stopped to eat at a restaurant by the water and then we continued on towards the Red Woods. We were taking out time more than we wanted to, but every time we stopped we met some crazy character that delayed us. Willits, CA was FULL of interesting people. We stopped at a gas station to fill up and get some camping supplies around dinner time. A man was selling huge flats of strawberries that looked as if they had been picked that morning. I wanted to buy a little carton, but he would only sell them by the flat. Molly and I decided to split one, so we got way more strawberries than we could eat for $10. While Molly and I were buying the strawberries, Jared and Matt were learning the life story of this guy named Mike. Apparently he saw Molly's Vermont plate and the website written on the backs of our cars (we used glass paint to advertise the blog) and wanted to know what we were doing. We told him about the trip and our plans to move to Portland. He laughed and said "We call that getting 'Oregonized,' it starts right about here!" Mike was a pretty cool guy. He owns a metal shop right next to the gas station where he makes all kinds of pieces for everything from cars to jewelry. His shop was a mess, but he said that its a no waste business. He recycled everything. After about 40 minutes talking to this guy we decided to head out back on the road -we still needed to make it to the Red Woods before dark, which was fast approaching. He wished us good luck and we were back in out cars. We needed to get food for the camping trip so we stopped at a grocery store. Molly and I went in to get the food and the boys stayed in the cars. While we were getting dinner, Jared got sucked into a conversation with an obviously crazy man on his bike (Jared never got out of his car, the guy just rode up and started talking. People are WAY more outgoing on this coast). Jared said he was a crazy, possibly drunk, racist veteran from Vermont. The Vet said if we ever get into trouble we should call his friend and say he sent us. It was weird. I think Jared wrote down the whole conversation, and I'm sure he'll write about it in a later post.

It was getting dark and we were on the edge of the Red Woods. We found a camp site that had Red Wood trees, but just not the giant ones, and set up for the night. I was a little nervous because I had never gone "real camping" before, but I was relieved when the site had a bathroom and running water. We ate a delicious dinner of soup, bread, cheese, and strawberries and chocolate for desert. It was great! We settled into our tents for the night and it was beautiful! The tent that Matt had bought is all mesh so its completley see through. We layed on our backs and stared at the stars until we drifted off to sleep. Here's us the next morning:

I bet none of you would have ever thought you would see me in a tent!

That morning we were all excited to see the giant trees, so we got an early start, but that story will have to wait for another post.

xoxo,
Christie

1 comment:

  1. Running water and a bathroom at a camp ground is essential! :) So cool you saw Bob & Fab. Your journey looks amazing. Please send me your new address when you have moment. Love, Maria

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