West Coast Road Trip Day 3: Crescent City to San Francisco

This is the third day of a 1,700-mile west coast road trip from Spokane, Wa., To Southern California.

The third day of our West Coast road trip found us again waking up early with great anticipation for what awaited us. This family show so far had been fantastic, as the first two days certainly didn’t disappoint.

Before leaving Crescent City, California in our rear view mirror, we took a detour toward the Crescent City harbor, where the sea lions have almost gotten hold of it. There were more sea lions hanging around the harbor that morning than there were people. They had felt at home, lounging on the docks and near the ships, barking like a storm. It made me wonder what a person would do if they walked to the dock to take their boat into the water and found him surrounded by sea lions on the dock and in the water. Those creatures are great! What would you do? Surround them, overlook them? Would they move willingly? Would you have to snatch them or fight them? It was an entertaining sight, no doubt, and it made getting out of Crescent City even more difficult.

After leaving those sea lions behind, it didn’t take us long to fully immerse ourselves in the awe of Redwood. We really wanted to see these giants, but they were more amazing than we expected. As we headed south among the redwoods we found plenty of places to stop and take pictures, taking our time to take in the views as the locals passed us by as if they were late for happy hour.

Driving on Highway 101 through the redwood forests provided us with two opportunities for quieter, more scenic drives, and we took advantage of them gladly. We first made our way through the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, a ten-mile hike through the Redwood National and State Parks. We hardly encountered any traffic on this road, as we follow our usual routine of starting early.

It wasn’t long after we returned to Highway 101 and left the calm of the redwoods behind when we encountered a crowd of cars gathered along an ocean beach. We soon realized that the cause of this commotion was something we never expected: a herd of elk lounging on the beach! They seemed content to go about their own business and ignore their human admirers.

We had more redwoods in the future, but we had an immediate desire to make a beach stop, so we found our way to beautiful Arizona beach. There was a campground, a convenient parking lot, and there were only five other people there. It was beautiful and hard to put down. Unfortunately (and I’m a bit embarrassed as I write this) I can’t find it on my map to tell you its exact location.

After Arizona Beach, we resumed our hike toward San Francisco, heading south on Highway 101 toward Eureka. I didn’t know anything about Eureka, California before the trip; Except it was home to a mansion that my son saw in a book and wanted to see in person.

The Carson Mansion was completed in 1886 by lumber magnate William Carson. The building was in good repair and the landscaping was immaculate. It is one of the grandest buildings of its size that I have ever seen, and now serves as an exclusive gentlemen’s club. I found myself wanting to join just so I could get in.

The mansion was not the only spectacular sight we found in Eureka. I was in awe of the city murals, which covered the walls of grocery stores and performing arts buildings alike; Woof! This city ranks second to no one in the mural department. Congratulations to the artists, the city, and anyone else involved in its creation.

Everything described in this article so far is just the beginning of the third day of our road trip; at this time it was only around noon. You can see why our senses were overloaded! As this was expected to be the longest day of the trip, we had to leave Eureka and continue south.

Then we hit the Avenue of the Giants, a world-famous 31-mile journey through old redwood forests. It was fantastic, and yes, we drove our Jeep through one of the shortcut trees, and we have the photo to prove it!

After we left the Redwoods, Highway 101 took us through small towns, hills, and farms. Finally, we reached the exit ramp to Highway 1 in California. On our map, this highway seemed like a piece of cake. However, looking back, I must say that I have never in my life been on a windier, more curvy, and crazier road. I had no idea that the path would be like this; It took us up, down, left, right, and when the signs said 5 mph around the corner, they sure meant it. Woof! Taking that stretch of Highway 1 back to shore seemed to take forever, though it was really only about an hour and a half.

We plan to take Highway 1 to Muir Beach, just northwest of San Francisco, and return to Highway 101 in time to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. Although things were going well, the stretch of Highway 1 along the coast was just as curvy as what I described above; the only difference was the ocean view.

4pm came quickly, and although we had made many stops that day, we were still a long way from San Francisco and it was clear that we were going to cross the Golden Gate much later than expected. So we kept on going, stopping at Fort Bragg for a bite to eat and passing a lot more curves, hills, little towns and beautiful views. We didn’t find a lot of traffic or people, and this part of the trip was dynamic and interesting, but we were all ready to finish the day.

Finally, after a great but very long day, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge around 10 at night. After paying our toll and finishing construction (they were working on the bridge at the time), we got into the wrong lane due to construction cones! We had to get off on the wrong street, make a U-turn, re-cross the bridge in the opposite direction, then go back up to return to San Francisco, paying the toll a second time. After that ordeal, we were more than ready to head to our hotel near Fisherman’s Wharf in the heart of San Francisco. A magnificent, long, exhausting and exhilarating day!