Redwood National and State Parks

Redwoods near the Lady Bird Johnson Grove

We awoke early as usual and did a few things in the room before leaving a little after 7 pm. Our room in the Eureka Super 8 was fine, but wasn’t in the best part of town. It was, however, clean and quiet, which is all we really need. We drove north on Highway 101 and stopped at Clam Beach just north of Eureka. There was a long walk through the dunes to reach the ocean, and we walked along the waterline at low tide and looked for shells and sand dollars. There was a lot of fog making the views limited, but the wind wasn’t bad as we walked along in shorts and T-shirts. We got back to the rental car and continued north on US 101.

Redwood forest

Our first stop was the Redwood National and State Parks Visitor Center. We bought a couple of postcards to send back to family, and I bought a Redwood National Park windbreaker. The rangers at the visitor center were very helpful and gave us a lot of information on the park. We went out of the back of the visitor center to walk along the beach. Because there was so much fog, we couldn’t see much; we didn’t stay there long. Our first stop in the park was at the trail to the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, the location where the First Lady announced the status of the area as a National Park in October 1968. There were a number of large redwood trees all along the trail and a nice place with benches where the plaque commemorates the ceremony in 1968. Several other groups were on the trail, but everyone was keeping distanced.

Mature bull Roosevelt Elk

We got back on northbound 101 to the town of Orick where we saw another elk herd near the road. We stopped and took a few snapshots, especially of the large bull elk. We learned that this herd are Roosevelt Elk, but that California has these as well as Tule and Rocky Mountain Elk. After leaving the elk herd, we drove to the Prairie Creek State Park where there are often elk herds. We didn’t see elk there but found a bench where we ate our usual travel lunch of Ritz crackers and peanut butter.

on the Big Tree Trail

After leaving the visitor center we took the Newton-Drury Scenic Parkway which parallels Highway 101. There were many pull off spots with short trails to selected trees. We opted for the Big Tree Trail that features a redwood of impressive proportions and was named Big Tree. Other trees in the park have been found to be larger, but this tree is still very impressive and very accessible. We also walked the Circle Trail at the same trailhead. We drove a little further north on the Scenic Parkway to the Cathedral Trail that took us to many very large redwood trees as well as through redwood sorrel and many species of ferns. Our last stop on this road was the Ah-Pah Interpretive Trail that is a reclaimed logging road that has been returned to the contour and vegetation that was originally at the location.

False Klamath Bay

We returned to Highway 101 and drove toward Coos Bay, Oregon. We made a few stops along the way for especially scenic views as we drove along the Pacific Coast of Northern California. False Klamath Bay has some beautiful sea stacks with huge waves crashing all around them. There was still low visibility that may or may not have been due to the wildfires in the area. We didn’t smell smoke as strongly as we did earlier in the day, so we were thinking that this is just fog that is limiting our visibility.

Sea Lions at Crescent City, CA

Our last stop of the day was at Crescent City, one of the northernmost towns in California. We drove out on a spit where fishing boats go out each day. There were several small restaurants and food shacks serving fresh seafood. We drove to near the tip of the spit where dozens of sea lions congregate on platforms a few yards from the docks. They were being very vocal and vying for space on the floating platforms. We watched them for a while as we talked with the Koehlers on the cell phone. After about 30 minutes, we continued on toward Coos Bay.
We arrived our Super 8 in Coos Bay, Oregon around 5:30 pm and checked in to our first floor room easily. Our room was small but clean and convenient. We went out to a grocery store to pick up yogurt, fruit and snacks for Friday's drive then went for dinner. Mary found a highly reviewed local seafood restaurant, The Boat. This restaurant is constructed an old boat and a repurposed shipping container. Mary had a halibut fish and chips meal then helped me with the captain’s platter. We both thought that our meals were very good. We started sitting at a table outside, but the wind was a little sharp. We moved into the covered area that wasn’t heated but was sheltered from the wind. We chatted briefly with a local couple as we enjoyed our meals, then got the rental car filled up before going in for the night. 

We were pleased that gas prices here in Southern Oregon are a dollar per gallon less than in Northern California. Buying gas that is nearly $4 per gallon will take some getting used to since we were paying $1.78 per gallon back in Kentucky. We had forgotten that Oregon is one of two US states where gas stations are all full service. That will also take some getting used to. We hope to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for a long drive on Friday north through Oregon to Aberdeen, Washington.

Arriving in California

Back in April we decided to take a fall trip to see family on the West Coast. We knew that many of our retirement travel plans would be cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic but we hoped that the situation would be better under control by October. Travel rates were very affordable and flexible because practically no one was traveling. Government imposed quarantining and travel restrictions made most travel impossible. We were able to fly at no charge using our Delta Skymiles, and secured good rates on motels and the rental car.

Although the pandemic related restrictions were not lifted by fall, they have been eased permitting cautious travel using face masks and social distancing. Most restaurants were still carry out only and airlines have passengers well-spaced. Hotels are doing extra sanitizing in rooms, and everyone has sanitizer available.

We made an unplanned trip on Monday. My former boss and now friend, Dr. Stan Maynard, had sold his cabin at Timberline, near Canaan Valley. To help him get his personal things from the cabin, I rented the smallest box truck offered by Enterprise and had arranged to pick it up when Enterprise opened at 7 am. Mary & I left home at 4:30 am and arrived at Enterprise to learn that they had only their largest box truck available. Making the 4 ½ hour drive from Huntington to Canaan in the huge truck was stressful on the winding mountain roads. With the help of a couple of Timberline maintenance staff, we were able to get the truck loaded in a little over an hour. Because everything was well loaded and strapped down, it arrived back in Huntington without damage. With the help of a couple of medical students who rent from Stan, we were able to unload the truck in less than an hour. We returned the truck to Enterprise and drove our own car back home arriving a little after 9 pm and went straight to bed to rest before we leave tor Sacramento early on Tuesday morning.

We awoke at 4 am on Tuesday morning to drive to Cincinnati airport for our morning flight to Sacramento. As usual, we parked at the Hilton using the OneStopParking plan. The shuttle took us quickly to the Delta terminal of the airport. We had checked in at home and had the boarding passes on our phones, so check-in went easily. Our bag was two pounds over the 50-pound limit, but the agent let it go without an additional charge.

Thanks to our Global Entry status, we were able to go through security quickly and easily. We did not have to remove shoes or jackets, and nothing had to be taken out of our carry-on bags to pass through the scanner. Once through security, the airport had seats marked to assure social distancing and only a few restaurants were open. We were surprised that more people were flying than we anticipated. We walked through the terminal to our gate and ate the breakfast that we packed with us as we waited for our flight to board.

Soon after getting into our seats on the flight from Cincinnati to Salt Lake City, a flight attendant asked us if we were the Beckelhimers and welcomed us to the flight then asked if there was anything that we needed to make the flight a more pleasant experience. We assume that this was because we paid for the flight with Delta Skymiles, and she may have assumed that we fly with Delta much more than we do. We teased that she must have assumed that we were celebrities.

The layover at Salt Lake was not long, and we didn’t have far to go between gates. We noticed that the flight crew for the flight from Salt Lake to Sacramento was the same as the flight from Cincinnati including the flight attendant who greeted us on our first flight leg.

Once we were on at the gate in Sacramento, the crew deplaned passengers slowly to assure social distancing, but our bags were on the carousel and ready for us to pick up, We contacted Uber for the ride from the airport to an Enterprise car rental. The rental rates were a lot lower by not getting the car at the airport. This was our first experience with Uber, and it was good. I don’t know how much a taxi would have cost, but I am sure that it would be more than the $24 for the Uber.

Although I had reserved the rental car back in April, Enterprise managed to get things confused. We showed up at the branch that was near the airport where we had arranged to pick up the car, but they said the rental was scheduled for the downtown branch. However, they said that they could honor the rental but would upgrade the car from the compact we requested at no additional cost. After a bit of a wait we got a black 2020 Ford Fusion. The car was nice and had a lot of options like heated and cooled leather seats and other features that we would be unlikely to use. The temperature in Sacramento was 97 degrees, and we knew that a black car would be hot. It wasn’t until we were well north of the city on Interstate 5 that we discovered that the car’s air conditioning didn’t work. We thought about returning it to Enterprise but knew that our trip would be further delayed while they dealt with the problem. Since we were heading north along the Pacific Coast, we hoped that the temperatures would be cooler for much of our trip. We rolled the windows down, turned on the air conditioned seats, opened the sunroof and were fine.

Our travel plans have us on smaller, more scenic roads for most of our trip only taking Interstate highways to get between our planned routes. The main road that we planned to travel is US 101 sometimes called the Pacific Coast Highway. We took I-5 north for a short distance from Sacramento to Williams where we picked up California Rt. 20, which we took west until we hit Highway 101 near Ukiah, California and found our Days Inn hotel there. We checked in and made plans for dinner.

We made a quick stop at the Walmart in Ukiah for breakfast and lunch on Wednesday as well as bottled water that we like to keep in the car on all of our trips. We picked up Raisin Bran and yogurt for breakfast as well as our usual Ritz Crackers and peanut butter for lunch. We got grapes and bananas for snacks to supplement the bags of nuts and raisins that we packed.

We picked up dinner at a well rated local Mexican restaurant, Villa Del Mar. Mary got beef flautas, and I had chicken enchiladas. Both of us had beans and rice on the side and enjoyed our meals.

There was a general smoky quality to the air in Ukiah, and it was the northern staging ground for fire fighters involved with the Napa Valley fires. We didn't see any fires burning on the drive there, but we did see evidence of where they had been.