My Wednesday was not quite over when I left the Lost Coast behind.  There is nothing “lost” about Eureka, the northernmost commercial hub on the California coast.  It is a rather bustling port, with a solid maritime past.

Above is a logging display, on the grounds of Fort Humboldt, which the U.S. Government established to keep peace between Gold Rush-era settlers and the Yurok people.  It is now a sparsely furnished state park.

Downtown Eureka is full of solid, late-19th Century buildings, and several which are not up to modern earthquake-proof standards, and are identified as such on their frontage.

Eureka has a promenade and marina, where the community may gather. Life seems pretty good here now, after a long economic downturn.  Crescent City, some fifty miles to the north, also is bouncing back, but from a tsunami  a year or two ago.  Fog kept me from seeing very much of Crescent.

In between the  two, lies Redwood National Park, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The redwoods here are younger than those in Humboldt State Park, which I featured in Part 1 of this post.  They have a different species of elk, called Roosevelt Elk. Two Roosevelt Elk were happily feeding, as I stopped for a traffic light just shy of Crescent City.

The fog and I continued on my way to Brookings, OR, where I spent a restful night.  Day 8 was to be equally as fulfilling.

Jack London heard the call of the wild.  I heard the whisper of nature’s giants, the coastal redwoods, throughout the day on Wednesday.  I have been to all parts of California, and have several favourite spots in each area- San Diego, Palm Springs, South Lake Tahoe, Telegraph Hill, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz.  The Redwood Country, though, speaks to me as a unit.  For my Tuesday night sleep-under-the tree canopy and stars experience, I chose Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area.  It is quiet and perhaps one of the area’s best kept secrets, being somewhat in the shadow of Humboldt Redwoods State Park and Richardson Grove, but certainly no less lovely than its bigger siblings.

The area even has its own gathering spot, run by some rather insular, but interesting characters.  It’s the Peg House, just across the road from the park.  The family does turn out some great sandwiches, including the Breakfast Burrito, which could probably have sustained me for the next week. Coffee is great as well, and they have Yerba Mate, for those who prefer.  There is a surprisingly good collection of books, on various subjects, for sale.  There is also “the sheriff”.

Heading north, I encountered the South Fork of the Eel River.

Then, the Redwood Show was on, throughout the Richardson Grove and Humboldt Redwoods, including the Avenue of the Giants, which I followed as far as the Honeydew turn-off.  Here are four shots; with the rest being saved in my Flickr account when I get back to Prescott:

This grove is just north of the little town of Miranda, at “Auto Stop # 2”.

Next is a loner, about four miles further north.

In Humboldt Redwoods State Park, on the Gould Grove Trail, lies this reminder that redwoods have shallow roots, but are durable, even in death.

Towards the west end of Humboldt, there rises the Rockefeller Forest.

Once out of the redwoods, one enters the King Range of the Coast Mountains.  This is the area often called The Lost Coast.  Much of it is accessible only on foot.  The towns are small, and don’t seem to get many visitors.  That’s a pity; this area has great beauty all its own.

This scene is east of the village of Honeydew.

Next is Mattole Beach, the north trailhead for a Lost Coast trek, which would last 3-6 days.

I enjoyed a cheeseburger made with local grass-fed beef, at the Yellow Rose, a bit up the road from Mattole Beach, in Petrolia.  Ironically, as I was driving out of Mattole Beach, I stopped as a large shape emerged from the roadside brush.  “It’s a boar!  It’s a bear! No, it’s an Angus!”  CaliMan behind me in a pickup, pulled out from the line and drove around me, yelling at the cow as he went on his way.  The RV driver approaching us gingerly made his way past the sizable beast.  Me?  I spoke words of farewell to Elsie, and went on to lunch.

After Petrolia, there is starkly exquisite Cape Mendocino.

The black rock beach speaks of ancient volcanic activity in the region.

The road from here leads back inland a bit, to Ferndale.  It is a steep route, with sheer drop-offs in a few places- so if you go, be alert for the cows, the CaliMen (they are still in a hurry, even on the curves) and the occasional slippery stretch of gravel.  I will write part 2 of this post tonight- concerning Eureka and Redwoods National Park.

Tuesday was one of those days when I had to make choices of elimination.  I could not get an Internet connection at the Abalone Inn on Tuesday morning, so I got packed up and went on with my day.

The itinerary called for spending the greater part of the day at Point Reyes, then going to the Heirloom Exposition at Sonoma County Fairgrounds, in Santa Rosa.  I found I was able to visit Tomales Bay State Park, Abbott’s Lagoon, Mc Clure Beach and Pierce Ranch, all on the northern side of Point Reyes National Seashore.  At Pierce Ranch, the battery went dead on my camera.  That killed going to Point Reyes itself; besides, it was getting past 1 PM and I had to consider traffic coming back to Santa Rosa from the Bay Area.

What I got from the day, though, was a greeting from a bull elk, high on a ridge, as I was in the canyon below, heading down to McClure Beach.  He bugled and whistled, several times, and stood watching, intently, as I kept on my way along the trail.

I also got a good introduction to some of the plants of Point Reyes, and how they were used by the Miwok people.  Here are three views along the trail from Heart’s Desire Beach to Indian Beach, in Tomales Bay State Park.

The trail shows how the Miwok used various plants found near the beach, for food, medicine and fabric.  An example would be the mountain blackberry, which has leaves similar to poison oak, but a rough-surfaced stem, as opposed to the toxic plant’s smooth stem.

Here are a scene of Indian Beach, and one of Miwok traditional housing.

Lunch was a new twist on clam chowder, Tomales Bay clam chowder, which has crisp bacon and a lemon-tinged broth, followed by dungeness crab cakes and a slice of Wild Huckleberry Upside-down Cake.   This got me through the rest of the day, and was served up at Nick’s Cove Restaurant, in the shoreline village of Marshall, northeast of Point Reyes.  I’m glad I opted to stay inside. A few others who went on the patio were being pestered by bees.  This seems to be a rather widespread issue along the northern California coast right now.  At any rate, my waitress brightened up, once she didn’t have to deal with the bees herself, as the outside guests came back in on their own.

I spent about forty minutes yesterday afternoon, at the Heirloom Festival, in Santa Rosa.  I got a couple of videos regarding soil and food production, from a natural foods perspective.  I also enjoyed speaking with various heirloom seed producers from northern California.  We have an heirloom seed distributor near my home.  He lives in Chino Valley, AZ.

I found few other campers, upon settling in for the night, at Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area, the southernmost park along the Redwoods Highway, between Santa Rosa and Crescent City.  A bonus was that I got to charge my camera battery, in the men’s restroom.

It was a fine end to a topsy-turvy day.

I rose early, as usual, this morning in Reno, and just savoured the fresh air and calmness that accent a weekend morning on the still emerging East Side of the Biggest Little City in the World.  I made the mental adjustments needed for our trip to Oakland:  No Carson City, Virginia City or Lake Tahoe, this time around.  We would not stop at Donner Pass or in Sacramento, either.   The time we had available, four hours from Noon to 4 PM, would be needed to get straight to Oakland, give or take a few minutes for a potty break.

The occasion this afternoon was special.  Along Oakland’s Lake Merritt, between 100-200 Baha’is gathered to walk the shoreline, commemorating the visit and walk here by Abdu’l-Baha, the eldest son of Baha’ullah, the Founder of our Faith, and His immediate successor, 100 years ago this month.  Tomorrow, even more Baha’is will gather in San Francisco, to honour Abdu’l-Baha’s visit to that stately gem of a city, a day or so after His stay in Oakland.

We got to Oakland in plenty of time to join in the opening prayer, then walked a 3.2 mile course, around the beautiful lake.  I was quickly joined by a friend from several years ago, who is a Baha’i in Phoenix.  “C” shared his grief from a personal loss, and I am honoured to have been able to help him through it, just a small amount.  I think, more and more, that we are put in situations where we can be of assistance to those in need.  How we handle such situations determines our own self-worth.

My friends from Reno, Tom and Michele, took to the route like hiking masters, though they hadn’t been on the trail in quite some time.  We covered about 2.75 miles of the route, before prudence took charge, and “Mima” Michele declared victory.  It was time for dinner, anyway, being nearly 7 PM.

I was delighted to also meet up with another Baha’i friend from the Bay Area, Marta R., and take a couple of photos of her family, with “C” joining in one of the shots.

Marta R. and family, Lake Merritt

Here is Lake Merritt, and here are my friends and I, honouring Abdu’l-Baha’s vision.

After bidding adieu to Marta, “C” and the rest of the Baha’is, the three of us capped a wonderful day with a Thai dinner at this fine establishment.

Gertrude Stein would be pleasantly amazed.  There is a “there” in Oakland.  “Mima’s” family can also be proud of her, for this was no ordinary effort.

I woke at my usual time, 6 A.M., in the Barbarella Room, at Atomic Inn.

While waiting for the coffee to be ready in the motel office, I took a stroll around downtown Beatty, and found these tidbits:

I moved on northward, about 10 A.M., and stopped periodically to look at the scenes of the Great Basin, and the mountains which hem this high desert in.

The small mining town of Goldfield lies about an hour north of Beatty.  It has public buildings of native stone, and businesses typical of a Western mining community of the early 20th Century.

Goldfield also has a fine public park, a bit off the beaten path, on the north side of town.  This was a fine place to have lunch and read today’s Las Vegas Sun.

Moving right along, I took this shot, just north of Scotty’s Junction, which leads to Death Valley National Park.  Notice the striations going  horizontally, across the mountain’s face.

My last stop, before Reno, was at Walker Lake, just north of Hawthorne, NV.  Here are two scenes without reflections, and one with the images of the surrounding terrain.

That was my journey for the day.  I arrived at the Smith residence in Reno, a little after 6 P.M., and spent a happy evening catching up on a dozen years of old times, since we had seen each other last.

I left my humble den at 11:30 AM, after carefully pulling every last weed out of the back yard, cleaning the house and making triple sure I had everything I needed for the month ahead.  Then I went and had my mail held, from tomorrow on.  Today’s mail brought a bonus- my paycheck from Chino Valley Schools!  I celebrated that by having lunch at Bonn Fire, one of the town’s good restaurants.

Pit stops for ice in Ash Fork and an iced mocha, in Kingman, kept me going until it was scenic photo time- first overlooking the Colorado River, near Dolan Springs, AZ.

I drove the relatively short distance that remained, to Hoover Dam, and walked around for about thirty minutes, taking a few shots of the engineering marvel-

and the Eagle Men:

With miles to go before I was to sleep, I stopped ever so briefly at the Boulder Basin overlook of Lake Mead.  Note the two pyramid-shaped islands.  One of them is named- Pyramid Island!

Feeling the heat (96 degrees), and not wanting to deal with traffic any longer than necessary, I drove through Las Vegas, without stopping.  I will spend a few days there next  President’s Day weekend (February), anyway- at Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire, etc.

My supper was stuff out of the cooler at a rest area in Amargosa Valley, and cold drinks from the Alien Cafe and Store, across the road.  The store clerk was facing an issue that hits a lot of us in rural areas:  Spotty cell phone service and bad customer service- Some of you might know the drill, “Want us to help?   You need to drive into town.”  (I have this issue with T-Mobile not being in Prescott, so Phoenix is the place to go for service.)  Her carrier is only available 56 miles away in Las Vegas.  Closer, though, is Area 51.

So, where do you suppose I headed next?

WRONG! 🙂

I am spending the night at Atomic Inn, Beatty, NV.  So, I still might end up glowing in the dark.