Highway 101 becomes the coast road near Eureka.  Route 1 ends and Hwy 101 picks up the slack and takes you all the way to Oregon.   We were heading for Oregon to meet with Holly and Marty, two friends of Caroline's from college days.

We drove north and decided the first point of interest aside from the great scenery all along the highway would be the Lady Bird Johnson Grove in the Redwood National Park.  This particular grove had some significance to me since I had just read Helen Thomas' biography.  OK, Helen Thomas is a UPI reporter that has been covering the White House for 8 presidents.  She has gained some insights along the way.  And she was along for the ride when LBJ came out to California to inaugurate this grove.  Enough of the trivia...

The grove was great.  It had all the requisite trees that you might expect.  But it also had a real serenity since the fog was rolling in and we were alone on the trail.  And then it had all these wild flowers in pink, white, yellow, purple, and combinations therein.  It was very cool.

We took these two shots to give those that are unfamiliar with coastal redwoods a sense of their size.  The burn cavities are typical and don't really hurt the trees.  These trees grow to somewhere between 200 and 300 feet tall.  There are quite impressive.

Coastal redwoods get taller and older.  The Sierra redwoods get more girth and are not as tall.  Otherwise they are just magnificent trees that can live to be 2000 years old.

A typical flowering shrub in the redwood forest is the rhododendron.  These rhododendron seem to react to the low light and space in a way that makes them start to look like small trees.  The blooms are just electric in their intensity.  I grew up with rhododendrons, but not like these.  My mother would like them a lot.

The other flower that was absolutely incredible was the wild iris.  They grew along the paths where they could get more light.  And they were found in the relatively clear areas where a tree had recently fallen.

At one point Caroline was "feeling the force" of the forest.  She tried to do her Samson imitation, but the trees held up, thank goodness.  Imagine explaining that to the park ranger..?

We got back on the highway after the LBJ grove and headed for Orick and the Roosevelt Elk herd.  As we were driving along I started to wonder why so many things out here are named for other people.  A lot, and I mean thousands of redwoods in various groves are given names.  The usual suspects like presidents and industrialists are named.  And then there are a lot of people that you just can't imagine how they got a grove named after them.  It must have been a very fashionable thing at one time.  Imagine deciding that a redwood tree grove should be named after you.  Then you truck out to the middle of nowhere, joined by some local official, say a few words that attempt meaningfulness, and forever after people wandering in those woods would wonder "Who the hell is this Greg schmoe that has these trees named after him?".  It seems absurd, but then so many fashionable things do in the clear light of historical perspective.

Around Orick, which is a really dinky town that is famous for being the center of the Roosevelt Herd of Elk, and yes they are named after FDR, and no I don't know why.  But they were all over the place looking regal and bit out of place.  I always think of large hoofed mammals as plains dwellers.  Something that big and fleet of foot should inhabit big open spaces.  But these animals seemed as happy to be in the trees and dense forest as they were the meadows and clearings.

We happened upon this small group of them while driving along the beach.  They were really close to us, as the pictures show.  I only have a 3X lens, so you know they were close.  I was feeling brave since I had three tons of metal around me in case somehow I pissed them off.

At the end of the road along the beach we were at the trail head for the Fern Canyon.  Caroline was so taken with this Fern extravaganza that she memorized all the types of ferns found there.  She has been reciting them to me ever since, so now I know there were Sword, Five Fingered (a particular favorite), Lady, and the Wood fern. 

The canyon seems to be a river bed that was carved out of the hillside over time.  The canyon has almost vertical sides that are completely covered with ferns.  And there is the occasional Elk passing through, and plenty of evidence that they frequent the place regularly.  Especially after eating.

After we were done hiking around the Fern Canyon we headed back out along the beach road.  There was plenty of Lupine around, which looked great.  Socks needed to be walked after having spent so much time in the car by himself.  And the Lupine seemed to inspire him a bit.

And then while driving back out, we came upon a couple more Elk.  They didn't seem interested or concerned about us at all.  Don't you hate to be ignored by a 1000 pound beast out in the middle of nowhere?  Not at all, live and let live I always say.  We took some pics and kept on going.

After we left the Redwood National Park and continued heading north towards Crescent City.  We stopped at one point because we were so taken with the scenery in front of us.  It reminded me of the time long ago when Caroline and I stopped along Route 1 a little north of Davenport, when I suggested what our wedding song should be (Van Morrison's Ball And Chain).  It was that kind of moment with the light just right, the scenery beyond description, and my best friend beside me.

Then Caroline made me drive back up the hill to check out the flowers we missed along the way.  All great moments must come to and end..  ;-) 

Eventually we did get to Crescent City.  And we did find a little restaurant to have dinner, and then a really divey little motel where we would spend the night.

This divey motel was built in 1964.  Supposedly all the redwood in the hotel came from one tree. 

The motel came complete with two prong electrical outlets, but digital phones.  Fortunately, the Safeway had adapters for the power, and the manager was very sympathetic to a road weary geek that needed the daily net fix..

North Coast Day 2

We went touring around Crescent City.  We were supposed to meet Holly and Marty and their new son Evan.  These are people that Caroline went to college with, who don't get to the bay area very often.  So it's good to catch up with them. 

But first we needed to see the area and meet them later in the afternoon.  The big thing in Crescent City is the light house.  And the fishing, of course.  But we weren't up for fishing this AM since somehow we missed the 5 AM charter for bottom fishing.  Oh well, maybe next time..

The lighthouse is located on a little spit of land just off the harbor.  You can only get to it at low tide since the land bridge comes and goes with the tides.  We managed to time it right, but more than a few people have had to wade back.

It has been automated so no one lives there now. But it had been occupied up to about 1963.  It looks like one of the more dismal occupations, to my unschooled eye.  In the days before electricity, you had to refill the oil and trim the wick every four hours at night.  Now all the light houses are electrified, but there still seems to be a romantic notion around a pretty cramped, damp, and lonesome occupation.

After the lighthouse I took a stroll out the jetty to see what it looked like.  The jetty is around a half mile long.  At this latitude it really takes a pounding from the Pacific.  I couldn't capture the scale of the thing.  But the big concrete Dolos weight 84,000 pounds each.  And some of them have been moved and broken by the sea. 

These eyes are about 6 inches in diameter.  They are very strong looking.  But somehow, the sea bent one of them.  You just can't imagine the kind of force that might be required to bend something this stout.

Also, all the Doloes and Tetrapods are cabled in place out at the end.  The cylindrical can looking shields around the chain are about a foot in diameter.  It's really beefy stuff.  But the sea breaks and moves it just the same.

We found Holly, Marty, and Evan on the beach at midday.  This was the first time that we had seen Evan in person.  He is definitely a cute little kid. 

After visiting with Marty and Holly, we left them to their sea kayaking with the promise to meet up with them later on a particular gravel bar on a particular river in Oregon.  We went to an Azalea park to sample some of the terrific smoked salmon for lunch.  There is nothing better than north coast smoked salmon.  This is just the first of many such meals..

After lunch we headed for more big trees.  There are some really big trees to be seen in the Jedediah Smith National Park.  This particular tree was unique in that it had rejoined fairly high off the floor.  After you've seen a bunch of these giants, you start to look for the anomalies.  We get jaded so quickly..  ;-)

We did find Marty, Holly, and Evan on the gravel bar.  Caroline, navigator without peer, directed us to the spot on the first try. 

Marty and Holly have a customized van that works very well for them.  Caroline and I use my old backpacking tent, which she complains about.  The site was perfect, but it was shared by a bunch of people that were interested in running dirt bikes down the bar at high speed every so often.  We kept hearing the chords of Deliverance, and wondered at what point one of them would join the ranks of the Darwin Awardees.  No excitement happened, but we were entertained by the various interesting ways these people could have killed themselves.

Evan was the center of attention, and provided lots of chances for yucks and giggles.

We headed into Ashland from the coast.  We tried to take a tour of the Oregon Caves, but the wait was well over an hour.  Somehow we didn't think it was worth that much dedication.

When we got the Ashland, we got some dinner and then caught the Green Show, which was a bunch of old style musicians singing and playing old songs from Shakespeare's time.  This was the warm up act before the actual play went on.

But we did manage to score the last two tickets to A Merchant of Venice at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  The seats were great, the production quite good.

We drove over the Holly and Marty's house to fall into bed exhausted.  It capped another great day.

Day 3

We started the day pretty slowly.  Caroline got her baby fix with Evan while I got a chance to play social geek with Marty.  Our immediate destination was to head up to Crater Lake National Park.

We continued north from Ashland and Medford and saw many vistas from of the surrounding countryside.  We followed the Rogue River gorge up to the crater.

There were many scenic spots, but this one in particular was really good.

Crater Lake was formed by a series of geologic eruptions that undermined the volcano.  Then the top fell in creating the crater.  Since this area gets about seventy inches of rain a year, it began to fill up.  Now it's one of the deepest fresh water bodies in the world at about 1900 feet deep.

As we climbed further and further up to the rim of Crater Lake the weather got wetter and wetter.  By the time we reached the lip of the Crater, it was raining quite steadily and everything was thoroughly soaked.

The water in the lake was the same incredible blue that I've only seen in the Mediterranean.  The scene was made a lot more dramatic by the low clouds swooping in and out of the crater itself. 

These two pictures show the Phantom Ship, which is a rock formation near this edge of the lake. 

The walls of the crater tend to be almost perfectly vertical.  I'm surprised we don't hear about more BASE jumpers coming here. 

These colorful rock formations are the result of lava cooling at different rates and welding or mixing various compounds in the lava with other things in the soil. 

The second picture shows the colorful soil and the mist over the crater.  The place is very stark because of the lack of rain and the unworldly terrain.

We eventually ended up at the Diamond Lake Resort where we had some dinner and stayed for the night.  We had planned to camp, but since it had been raining all day and was still raining, the hotel seemed like a reasonable option.

Also, the next 50 miles of road, heading towards the coast, should be very pretty.  We didn't want to miss it by driving it in the dark.

Day 4

Day 4 of the North Coast dawned to bits of scattered sun through an otherwise thoroughly gray sky.  We had high hopes of doing some hiking around these verdant hills, but Californians that we are, we just couldn't bring ourselves to hike in the rain that quickly started and continued throughout the day.

We ended up staying at the Diamond Lake Resort and Conference Center.  A clear case of marketing overload if there ever was one.  As you can see, the Motel style rooms just don't smack of conference center splendor as I'm used to it. 

The lake itself is OK.  This is mostly a fisherman's paradise in the warm weather, and a snow mobiler's paradise in the winter.  I expect there is some hunting during the various season too, although we didn't see any.

We drove all the way to Portland, and then on to Astoria.  Astoria, named after John Jacob Astor, who tried to make some money from the early fur trade, is the place where Lewis & Clark wintered on the Pacific coast.  I'm a bit of a history buff, so Lewis & Clark interest me more than a bit.  This is also the first town west of the Rockies, and has seen a number of firsts since then.    The first cable TV system was launched here in 1949 to name another first of note. 

We arrived in town late since it's a long drive from Diamond Lake to here, especially in rain, and the roads tend to be small and slow.  Not to mention Oregon drivers don't seem to understand certain rules of the road - Like getting out of the left lane when you aren't passing anyone, etc., etc..

After securing a room at another waterside motel, we headed off to see the Astoria Column.  This is a monument dedicated to Astoria in 1926.  It commemorates the fact that this town was really the place to be if you were on the north coast.  The fishing, mining, and timber industries were going at a great clip.  This town, on the mouth of the Columbia river was the gateway to all that wealth, and it showed at the time.  The Column details the timeline from discovery to 1926 with a scroll that shows the key events leading up to 1926.

The Astoria-Megler bridge is the one that will take us north tomorrow to Seattle.

The canoe is a typical Chinook dugout replica.  It's the type that Lewis & Clark, and many others would have seen the Clatsop and other Indians using on the river.

You can walk all around the base of the column, and you can climb the 164 steps to the crown and walk around there too.  Caroline, as some of you might know, has a fear of heights.  Those that have skied with her will wonder how this can be, but it's very real (to her). 

Caroline did climb all the steps, without any prodding from me, and got to the doorway at the top, and then froze.  The balcony, which you can see in the first picture is very sturdy, with a nice strong railing, and about three feet of walkway at it's narrowest point.  Nothing on this planet, or even the planet itself was going to get Caroline to look over that railing.  I think her fingernail marks may still be in the paint next to the door.

Caroline stepped back into the stairwell and headed back to ground level, and I followed after popping another shot or two that would look terrible on the web site since it was so overcast.

Tomorrow is another day to tour around the area and then head off towards Seattle.

Day 5

We set out to visit the Fort Clatsop recreation of the Lewis & Clark fort.  This was the spot where Lewis & Clark wintered in 1805.  It was the first US fort west of the Rockies, and it was a key piece in the negotiations that happened years later where territorial disputes arose with the English, French, Spanish, and Russians.

We started the tour with a demonstration of flintlock firing.  There was a lot of talk about things like "Lock, Stock, and Barrel", the three pieces of the gun.  That is where the expression comes from, for all you trivia buffs out there.

The firing was cool.  It wasn't as loud as you might expect.  I think it would be a bit louder if there was a lead shot used.  Since this was inside the park, they had to use a paper load.

We toured around the fort itself.  This is a recreation that was raised in 1955, and has been well maintained ever since.  I think it's kind of the west coast version of the Church of the Holy Anachronism.  A bunch of people that are very interested in trying to live like people did long ago.  They get dressed up in buckskins and try to use flintlocks, and build really bad canoes out of logs.  And they seem to enjoy it a great deal.  More power to them since it makes the budget to way down for all those park service movies about historic monuments like this one.

Lewis & Clark stayed here for about four months.  It didn't rain for 12 of those days, and they saw the sun for six.  It wasn't that much different for us.  We didn't really see the sun at all, and it rained almost nonstop all day.

We walked down to the canoe launch near the fort.  There were some dugouts sitting around, so I tried one on for size.  It would have been really tough to paddle one of these things a few thousand miles like the Lewis & Clark crew did. 

Next we headed back into Astoria to walk around the Maritime Museum.  This is a pretty decent museum for such a small place.  It has a lot of cool gear in it from the fishing and warfare eras.  The bridge of the USS Knapp was in display, and Caroline couldn't resist playing around on the bridge.  They actually floated it in on a barge, then built the building around it.

The second picture is a whaling cannon and harpoon.  This is actually a pretty hefty cannon.  And the harpoon is an exploding device that goes off a few seconds after the harpoon hits the target.  The explosion inside the whale kills it, and the harpoons barbs then expand so you won't lose the catch.  It's a pretty barbarous thing altogether, and was responsible for the increased effectiveness of the whaling fleet.

Outside the Maritime Museum there is a sixty foot beacon buoy and a Coast Guard buoy and rescue ship.  Both of which were in service until the 1980's.  The buoy is just a really big buoy with some fuel and generators aboard.  More modern (read less expensive and more durable) buoys now do the job.  The ship was retired because it's not as safe and doesn't have as much utility as the newer designed ships. 

After the museum we headed up the coast on Route 101.  For those in SFO, Route 101 is pretty benign stuff, except maybe during certain rush hours.  But up here it's particularly scenic - and wet all the time.  This part of the peninsula (the Olympic peninsula) gets about 150 inches of rain a year.  That's about a half an inch a day, every day of the year.  Yes, it's a rain forest, and it's not very warm.  And the trees are really big, as you can see in the second picture.

These shots give you some idea of what it looks like to drive through the various forests that are being raised for timber harvest.  Various companies are raising crops of trees for harvesting.  They even put signs on the side of the road that let you know when the last time this section was cut and when it will be cut again.  It seems to be on 30 to 60 year cycles, but I don't know what makes the cycle be a particular period. 

After rolling through many miles of trees interspersed with harvested sections, we got to a section of coastline.  The light was really interesting to play with, and the scenery was great.  Something about the driftwood makes for a great bit of scenery.  Maybe if I was from this area it wouldn't seem so interesting, but somehow it just draws you in.

The first two pictures came from a section of coast called Kalaloch, pronounced klay-lock.  The second picture is from further south near a town called Aberdeen.

We never captured a good shot of a roadside tree harvest.  It looks like a bomb went off and left some pretty serious desolation in it's wake.  However, this hillside clearcut with the trailer in the foreground captures the starkness of the clearcut against the backdrop of an otherwise perfectly healthy forest. It turns out that a lot of people in this part of the world seem to live in trailers.  They are all over the place, and are usually in conjunction with a large beat up pickup truck, and other flotsam strewn around.  Some stereotypes may have some truth to them after all.

I think the logging can be analogized to farming a field.  When the field has been harvested and the denuded plants or fallen hay is out in the field, it looks like hell.  The difference seems to be that the trees are taken once every few decades or longer.  It seems the timber companies have figured out that trees need to be replenished and they take a lot of pains to do so.  Everything is replanted, and the wild flowers that immediately take over are magnificent.  It's just a little jarring to see the giant swaths of missing forest every so often along the roadways.

The second and third pictures are a giant Cedar.  We saw a sign and decided to check it out on a whim.  It turned out to be a very cool tree.  It was like a gigantic Bonsai.  The tree has so many crags and wrinkles that it just oozes age and wisdom, so my cultural bias tells me.  We oohed and aahed it for quite a while and then were driven away by the rain.

We headed towards Port Angeles across the peninsula.  As we got further away from the coast it warmed up and rained less.  We knew we were getting somewhere when this rainbow showed up and got brighter and brighter.  Crescent Lake turned out to be really big and very scenic.  The rainbow was just a big plus on top of the rest.

We finally made it to Port Angeles where we had dinner and spent the night.  We did see some sun.  And the forecast was for better weather.  We dropped into bed with another fine day behind us, and more to look forward to.

Day 6

Today we headed for Everett and Boeing to take the factory tour.  We had tried to take this tour the last time we were in this part of the world and couldn't get a ticket.  We were successful this time. 

The thing that I realized when I was there as I looked at the HUGE building that is used to make 747's.  And then all the other buildings, airfield facilities, and then thought about the 198,000 people employed by Boeing.  The thing that really struck me was how good Boeing is at so many different disciplines.  It wasn't just that they figured out a lot of technical stuff, but they figured out very clever ways to manufacture highly technical systems and structures with relatively low skilled labor.  And they managed to figure out how to do it in such a way that any person working a shift can walk in and pick up right where the last shift left off without missing a beat.  I think the manufacturing techniques and the repeatability of the systems are as impressive as the finished product. 

We took the ferry from Port Kingston to Edmonds.  It was a quite a nice trip.  We had a smoked salmon picnic on the way over.  Socks had to stay in the car..

After the drive up from the ferry, using the diamond lane of course, we were in Everett and the Boeing Tour Center.  The Boeing tour is quite good.  You get to see the inside of the shop where the 747's are put together.  But, you can't take any pictures.

After the Boeing tour we headed for Betty and Wil's house in Edmonds.  Betty is Allan's sister.  They have a lovely house on the water.

We stopped and chatted for a while, then went to dinner.  I got to have one of those salmon dishes where the filet is cooked on an Alder plank.  I think I might have to get some Alder wood for my smoker.  It was really good. 

After dinner we went back to the house and we showed pictures on the TV using the computer.  We covered a lot of ground, including the Galapagos since Wil had been stationed there about 50 years ago.  Some of it looked just the same as when Caroline and I were there for our honeymoon last year. 

After they were thoroughly bored with all our pictures we went to bed.  It was a nice day, and catching up with the relatives was fun.  Wil had lots of great stories about his first career with the military  and then his second career with Boeing.  It was a great way to spend the evening.

Day 7

We started the day with some wonderful conversation with Wil and Betty.  As much as they wanted to fill us up with all kinds of breakfast goodies, we forewent the offer, drank some juice, talked more about the Gunderson family's heritage, and then headed out.  Of course after such terrific hospitality we made them promise to come and visit us down at our house.

We drove down past Seattle.  We really didn't have any great need to drop in and see anything.  Besides, the traffic is so nasty on every single road that we were very motivated to get away from the area.  I had the same reaction the last time I was here, and the time before that.  It makes me appreciate the excellent infrastructure back home. 

Today was a very momentous day.  Our dear friend Lisa got laid off from her job.  This was quite a shock to all of us.  So, the best thing we could suggest as therapy was to join us on this tour.  And that is exactly what she did.

Lisa arrived this morning at Sea-Tac.  We picked her up, grabbed the luggage, and headed for the ferry from Fauntleroy to Southworth.  That got us out of the traffic pretty quickly and back to the great scenery that we had been enjoying so much.  On top of that the weather was just perfect, sunny, warm, and clear.  We couldn't have asked for a better way to start Lisa's multi-day program to decompress from dotcom land.

After driving up to Sequim (pronounced 'skwim'), we decided we needed to sample a winery.  We went to Lost Mountain Winery, and were very impressed with the wines.  We even got some to have with dinner later that evening.  If you ever get the chance..

Then we headed for the Dungeness Spit.  We did have to go by the Olympic Zoo, and my friends Drew and Devin wouldn't forgive me if I didn't mention this place for them. 

We hiked about 2/3's of the way out to the lighthouse before turning around.  Supposedly this Spit is the longest natural spit around.  That in itself didn't impress us very much, but it was very scenic, and it was great to stretch the muscles a bit.  We have covered almost 1300 miles at this point.

After all the hiking we headed for the Motel.  We had reserved it beforehand so that Lisa wouldn't worry too much.  She is an inveterate planner, and we were trying to make her relax.  So we cast off our usual laissez-faire approach and reserved a room ahead of time for the three of us.

Then we went out to dinner, and a delicious event it was.  Another bunch of fish got consumed with great relish.  And another end to another perfect day.

Day 8

We started the day in Port Angeles with some exercise.  It should be noted that traveling is generally a sedentary lifestyle.  One needs to get the blood moving every so often or you turn into a bowl of jelly pretty quickly. 

Caroline shows us her fine exercise program for hotels..  As for me, I just run around the block every so often.

We left the hotel and headed for the local Fine Arts Center.  They have an exhibit of sculptures called Art Outside in various materials around the building on trails in the woods.  Some of it was really quite interesting.  There is a guide that you get which gives each piece the title and then you are on your own to walk around and explore.  It was a lot of fun.

After the art we needed to see the natural sights up on Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.  We drove up to about 5242 feet and started walking around.  The views all around were spectacular, and we ended up having a picnic lunch up there. 

Next we headed for a couple of wineries in Port Angeles.  The wine was very different than the usual stuff that you get in CA.  One of the wineries had a Red Currant wine that was really good, which we took with us.

We decided to try and catch the 5:30 ferry to Victoria, B.C.  We sat in the line and watched at least 100 the cars board the ferry, and missed it by three cars.  Well, that meant that we had to have dinner in Port Angeles.

We went to a small dockside place to have drinks, and got the whole tray of them dumped on our table and us.  We think the worst part was the camera.  It seems to have a bit of moisture fogging up in the viewfinder.  We think it will dry out and keep going, but there may be a gap in the pictures in the next couple of days.

We then headed for a Chinese place and had a mediocre dinner before boarding the ferry.  Of course on the walk back from the restaurant, we had to kill some time.  So we played with the local art found on the streets of Port Angeles.

We finally got on the 9:30 ferry to Victoria.  The trip was only slightly rocky for a while.  It's about and hour long journey.  We had already reserved a hotel room since we knew we were going to be in late, and Lisa's mom gave us a guide which came in handy. 

Tomorrow we start our tour in Canada, and the new page will be the Canada page.