Arcata, CA to Portland, OR

Day 22: Tue 12 Aug: The beauty continues...

Woke up, checked out of my motel, and looked for breakfast. The place the desk clerk recommended was closed on Tuesdays, as was the bagel joint across the street, so I headed to the plaza and had a really good breakfast at the Big Blue Cafe. Arcata is the home of Humboldt State University (part of the Cal State system), and it has a very lefty, hippie, crunchy, bent. On the way in the night before, one of the "adopt-a-highway" signs was sponsored by HSU NORML.

US 101 here is also a bicycle route. That means, among other things, that when there is a narrow bridge on the highway, there are special lights that flash to notify you that there is a bicyclist on the bridge. The lights flash because there are buttons for bicyclist to push, and/or sensors in the pavement that detects them when they ride over them. Anyhow, it was something I'd never seen before. And yes, one time the lights were flashing and there were no bicyclists.

After that late start, I headed up the coast. US 101 goes through a stretch of Redwood National Park. It's a beautiful ride. I saw a herd of elk. On this part of the trip, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to stay on US 101 through Oregon, and then go up the Columbia River to Portland, or whether to take US 199 to I-5. OCD-me wanted to stay on 101. Driving-me didn't want to stop and make a decision. The Garmin GPS does not always find the fastest route, even when it is set to. From Brookings, it said to stay on US 101. When I said I wanted to go to Portland via Crescent City, CA (thirty minutes to the south), it gave me another route, with an estimated arrival time thirty minutes earlier than the "direct" one. I would really like a GPS tied to Google Maps/Earth. Anyhow my indecision took me as far as Brookings, OR, where 101 was under major construction, and resembled a never-ending strip mall, so I turned around and headed south to take the US 199/I-5 route. I'm glad I did, because I stopped at a visitor's center in Redwood National Park, got directions to one of the redwood groves (Stout Grove) and visited it.

I've been to the redwoods before, and they are pretty to drive by and all (I've driven by plenty on this trip), but I keep forgetting what it actually feels like to be walking in the midst of them. Again, like most of the majestic scenery on this trip, it doesn't photograph well. But walking among the giants is a trip.

As much as I disliked the child-pandering Ewoks of The Empire Strikes Back, when I was driving through the forest, that's all I could think of.

US 199 to Grants Pass is another twisty-turny road up and down mountains with challenges akin to Hwy 1. There was a lot of road work getting it in better shape. I continue to have fun with the Rabbit. On I-5, I was enjoying taking the 55mph turns at 70. There's so much up and down, and so much tractor-trailer traffic (that slows down to 40mph on the hills), that everyone was jockeying for position.

Central Oregon is the Willamette River Valley: I crossed the river multiple times, the last time being at the Ross Island Bridge in Portland. The GPS took me on a weird route to get to the bridge from I-5. Later, I confirmed that this was the optimal/only way to get to the bridge. It involves exiting off of I-5, making a couple sharp turns, traveling on a residential neighborhood street for half a block, and then quickly merging onto another mega-lane road. The people living in that neighborhood must not like it one bit.

I pulled up right in front of Michael and Eric's house at around 8:00pm, where Michael was watering their plants. They have pretty intense plantings, including an apple tree that is currently bearing fruit. It looks a bit prehistoric, the way the plants encircle the house. The fact that there are little toy dinosaurs everywhere just heightens the effect. The neighborhood is residential, but a short walk from restaurants, grocery store, and has a nice mix of commerical and residential. We went for sushi for dinner, and headed home. I was confused as to whether I had met Eric before; I hadn't, as it turns out.