Still in California!!!!

So, we went south.  Though we were poised to go north, even as we posted the last update, we decided to head off for the California coast rather than the Oregon coast.  I did say we never quite had Washington figured out . . .

California is like a magnet.  It took Kate and I discussing the matter for about eight seconds before we turned south and headed for the redwoods rather than north further into Oregon.   For camping that night we ignored a sign in Redwoods NP that suggested a campground at the end of an unpaved 7 mile drive was “full”.  Thankfully there were two remaining sites in a campground of 27, about seven of which were directly on the beach overlooking a flat, rock-free stretch of the pacific (a rarity in northern California).  We decided to stay two nights and started stalking the people with sites right on the beach so we could claim up on one of their spots for the next night.  We identified the couple occupying “the spot” and I asked them if they were leaving the next day.  “Seven or eight in the morning and we’re out of here” they assured me.  At 5:30am I got out of the tent and took a stroll on the beach that found me walking by their site.  Turns out they weren’t up yet.  I took some pictures on the beach of the sunrise and checked back every twenty minutes until they were.  I asked if I could place a folding chair on the site as a flag so that when they drove off no one else would be able to snake what I was stalking.  We  locked-down the site for the night and there was much celebration.

After a very relaxing a wonderfully sunny day at the beach we awoke the next morning to drizzle and thick fog so we packed up quickly and trickled down the coast for the rest of the day.  We stopped in Arcata which is a fantastically different little hippie town in Humboldt county and went to the natural foods market and bought a bunch of used books for Ashlin.  We love Arcata and could almost see ourselves living here at some point but it is so far away from anything else it seems almost a bit like an island.  We would end up driving about four hours south out of Arcata and still wind up almost three hours shy of San Francisco.  Where we stopped this night was near a town called Point Arena, a town we thought we liked from a previous trip.  It wasn’t the town we were thinking of but it was a nice little old fishing village of about 300 people.  We stayed at Manchester State beach and enjoyed another sunny day which people kept telling us we were lucky to be having.  Places on the northern California coast all seem to claim themselves as the “foggiest and most windy place on the coast” kind of like the way everywhere in New England claims the best clam chowder.

After another day of slow, curvy and breath-taking road we crossed over onto Point Reyes National Seashore hoping to get backcountry permits for another backpacking trip but doubting our chances on a Friday night.  We walked up to the permit desk and noted that every weekend was marked “full” straight through September.  We asked anyway and apparently they save a couple spots for walk-ins.  Excitedly we packed up our backpacks and headed off for Coast Camp.  A short 2 mile hike in from the car afforded us a pristine beach stretching for miles with only two other people in sight.  Again, this foggy, misty place was beaming with sunshine and we chilled out on the beach while Ash played in a tide-pool and buried herself in the sand.  Katie spent the night fighting off imaginary raccoons (she still swears they were there) and we had our first re-hydrated eggs of the trip.  Not too bad if you’re really hungry and add lots of cheese.  We hiked out the next morning and got back into the car where we narrowly avoided hitting like 187 bikers along this stretch of PCH.  By lunch we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and looking for Jared and Ryann’s place.

One of the best parts of the trip already was getting to see these guys for just a little while so getting to see them for even longer at their place in Pacific Heights (with a hot shower and kitchen) was even better.  We cooked, ate, went out to eat, played Uno, hung out while eating and cooked some more.  San Francisco has always been one of our favorite cities so having good friends there is something special.  Although Jared and Ryann have been in the city since we all left Long Beach this is only the second time we’ve been to their place.  Sure makes us want to move.

We are now driving around the city on our third day here hitting up Best Buy so we can past pictures soon.  We are heading east for the first time in a while as we look for the Bay bridge and the 80 as we make our way towards Yosemite.  We know it will be crowded but there are some places that are just plain worth putting up with herds and the waterfalls are supposed to be amazing this year.  The higher campgrounds are still closed so it looks like we might find some more snow drift camping.  Wish us luck!  We’ll intersect our path from a couple weeks ago somewhere in in the Sierras and then on to Montana.  Update at the next internet spot!

Peace. D-