California-Oregon, August 2006

By 2006, I had been to San Francisco a dozen or more times over my life and career and loved it, but Barb had never really seen it properly and this was Allie’s first trip to the west coast. I wanted to introduce the girls to the best of Northern California and together explore up the Oregon Coast.

I’ve put together this post based on our photos and my memories…I haven’t actually found any of the corroborating notes or memorabilia that must be floating around this house somewhere. I may have some of the dates and details a little wrong, but I suppose it doesn’t matter greatly. If/when I find the other material, I’ll make corrections as needed. Also, this should probably be at least two posts but I’ve made it one long one. Editor’s prerogative.

San Francisco Memories

Putting together this post sparked a number of other San Francisco memories that aren’t really covered in other posts on this site, so I’ll include them here until I figure out if they belong anywhere else.

When Mom, Dad and I first went to Hong Kong in 1971, we stayed a few days in San Francisco, the first time I’d been there and I think Mom and Dad’s first time, too. We stayed at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, a landmark on Nob Hill. I remember having a drink at the Top of the Mark bar on the 19th floor of the hotel, watching tendrils of fog snake down over the hilltops and Golden Gate. The bar seemed like San Francisco’s equivalent of the Rainbow Room at the top of Rockefeller Center near Dad’s office in Manhattan — I love a bar with a view and I guess I got that from Mom and Dad.

We rode cable cars, saw Fisherman’s Wharf, and wandered a bit in Chinatown wondering if that was what Hong Kong would be like (sort of, but amplified several thousand times). I remember taking a Gray Line bus tour of the city to catch other highlights like the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The city and the bay were beautiful, the hills were intimidating to walk, the cable cars were fun, and I hoped we would return.

On subsequent trips to and from Hong Kong we stopped in San Francisco at least once more, though I can’t say exactly when. We explored a bit further afield, renting a car to see Pebble Beach, Monterey Bay and the 17-Mile Drive, Muir Woods and some of Marin County, though I remember little other than driving through all these places and thinking they were beautiful. We never played golf at Pebble Beach, for example, because Dad thought it was way too expensive.

It would be another decade or so before I returned in the mid-1980s with a rental car and an expense account from Atlantic Research Corporation. One of our biggest installations was at the VISA credit card data center in San Mateo and I had several long-ish trips there, one time stretching over the weekend. On that weekend, I enjoyed an especially epic day walking around the city from Golden Gate Park to the bridge and back to Fisherman’s Wharf that I mention below and in the Atlantic Research post.

I attended occasional industry conferences in San Francisco and I remember taking advantage of one free afternoon to book a wine country tour. Some other people from the conference and I bundled into a small van driven by a tour guide for a run through Sonoma and Napa valleys. We stopped in the town square of Sonoma for some cheese and snacks for the road, then stopped in at least four different vineyards and enjoyed tastings at each. We finished at Domaine Chandon which was by far the largest and most impressive of the bunch. It was an excellent, boozy tour, more memorable than the conference.

It may have been that same conference, but I remember being in San Francisco in October, 1984, just as Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert film came out. I found it playing in a theater near Fisherman’s Wharf and enjoyed it thoroughly. Still one of the best rock and roll concert movies ever and a fun evening.

On one of our early vacations back from Hawaii or maybe China/Hong Kong, Barb and I had like an 8-hour layover in San Francisco. I rented a car and tried to show Barb the city in one quick swoop. We got as far as Muir Woods, across the Golden Gate, but Barb was too jet-lagged to remember much of anything. She remembers sleeping in the car rather than getting out to see her first redwood.

Barb went to San Francisco for her first solo time to argue a case for her work, not long after the 1989 earthquake. She didn’t see much of the city, however. She booked a hotel near the courthouse which turned out to be in the Tenderloin, then a seedy red-light district. Everyone warned her not to leave the hotel at night so she didn’t. Fortunately, the hotel had a decent restaurant but she didn’t get a very positive impression of the city.

Barb and I had a better time showing San Francisco to Betsy, Joe and Sara when we all went there for Fred and Fran’s wedding in 1992. Seeing San Francisco for one afternoon and Monterey another were by far the best parts of that trip.

While I was with Hekimian in the 1990s we had a number of customers, business partners and conferences in the Bay area and I was able to return several times. I got to know more of the surrounding towns including Walnut Creek, San Jose, Petaluma and occasionally ventured further afield when I had the chance. I didn’t have the chance to get into San Francisco proper very often, but enjoyed exploring the region. One of my bosses at Hekimian, Mark Posluszny, had lived in the Bay area for decades and rhapsodized about the region and the weather, especially when we were in the middle of a humid Maryland summer.

Later in my Hekimian and Spirent days, we were doing well enough to host several of our own conferences and sales meetings in the Bay area. I ran many of these conferences and picked the locations, which sometimes included a scouting trip — always the best deal because I was wined and dined by the hotels as the customer. The meetings typically featured a round of golf or two, which fed into my desire to play on some of the best courses around. One of our sales meetings was at the Carmel Valley Ranch, a beautiful property tucked in the hills above Carmel. I was also able to play the excellent Pasatiempo golf course with one of our West Coast sales managers.

Then there was the boondoggle trip of my career in when some of our sales folks at Hekimian convinced my boss to buy a package of 10 tickets with hotel rooms for the 2000 U.S. Open golf tournament at Pebble Beach, partly because we knew we were going to host our big conference at Pebble Beach the following year. The sales team was supposed to use the tickets for top-level customers but it was so obvious a near-bribe that none of our best customers would take them. But, since we had paid for them and there was a chance someone might show up, I got the assignment to go. I spent four glorious days watching Tiger Woods break all sorts of records. It was great. I felt guilty but only a little.

The most memorable of our work events was the 2001 FutureOp Conference at Pebble Beach. We went all-out for this top-level conference for customers and partners. It was three days of intense (for me, running it) conference sessions at the Inn at Spanish Bay, plus a round of golf for everyone at Pebble Beach (I actually played the course three times in the preparation and aftermath of the event, plus the Links at Spanish Bay and Spyglass Hill). We held a big dinner and reception one evening at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. I had a near-religious experience walking the impeccable oceanside 18th hole (“the most famous finishing hole in the world”) at dusk with a nice single-malt whisky and some Spirent friends, knowing it was the best moment in one of the biggest weeks of my life. I also sensed I was tempting fate and the gods by enjoying it a little too much; it was a peak, but I had to get back down to earth before being smote.

I came to love the San Francisco Bay area and it would be at the top of any list of places for me to visit or live, other than it’s always been incredibly expensive and ever more crowded…plus, you know, earthquakes. Still, there are always beautiful areas to explore and lots more I haven’t seen. And I haven’t even started on the food: some of the best in the world. I was eager to show the region off as best as I could to Barb and Allie.

Saturday, August 12 – San Francisco

We flew to San Francisco and made our way to The Orchard Hotel, downtown near Union Square, not far from the financial district and Embarcadero. I found the hotel through reviews on TripAdvisor; in general this trip was one of the first times I relied on the site for travel planning. You can see my eloquent review of the hotel, my very first post on TripAdvisor or any similar site. I wrote the review because I found the hotel through the site and the front desk folks urged me to at checkout, the first time I’d been specifically invited to post a review.

Our first evening, we headed to Fisherman’s Wharf, a logical first stop. I had in mind catching a cable car there but as we left the hotel a limo driver asked where we were headed and offered to give us ride for standard cab fare. We clambered into the big stretch limo we all enjoyed the treat of spreading out in the back. A fine start to our trip!

We wandered Fisherman’s Wharf for a while, sharing a sourdough bread bowl of clam chowder from Fisherman’s Grotto. We enjoyed watching the sea lions at Pier 39. They were a new addition to the Fisherman’s Wharf waterfront, as far as I was concerned. Barb resisted the temptation to feed them bits of our bread bowl.

We walked to Ghirardelli Square where we got some dinner (not sure which restaurant) and visited the famous chocolate store. After dinner, we watched the cable car turntable and eventually caught a ride back to our hotel. We were glad to have brought some layers of jackets as it got much colder after dark. Cue the line often wrongly attributed to Mark Twain, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

Sunday, August 13 – San Francisco

Today’s agenda was a forced march on more of San Francisco’s sights and neighborhoods. First stop, Coit Tower. I had always seen this landmark but had never been to the top. We walked from our hotel, bypassing Chinatown which we would see later, I didn’t realize there were murals inside which generated controversy over socialist images when they were done in 1930s.

The views from the top of Coit Tower were good even though the day was overcast. We tried to get Allie (and Barb) oriented.

From Coit Tower, we headed downhill into the heart of the North Beach neighborhood. At Washington Square, we watched a group of older Chinese folks practicing tai chi. It looked very relaxing. Maybe someday I’ll actually give it a try.

We stopped in the City Lights Bookstore for a while. Barb and Allie were excited to find a great selection of Asterix and Obelix books and bought a few. Meanwhile, I contemplated my tenuous, romanticized links to the Beat Generation poets and their ilk championed by City Lights. I benefit from many of their progressive ideas even if I haven’t actually read much of their work. Still haven’t, but thanks.

From City Lights we marched back toward downtown. We used the Transamerica Pyramid as a landmark as we headed over to Embarcadero Plaza to find lunch in the Ferry Building Marketplace. I remember being impressed with the architecture of the Transamerica Pyramid since 1972 when it was built, one of the cooler buildings that went up in my lifetime. I think we poked our heads in the lobby but there was nothing much to see. There should be a bar at the top.

Heading downtown toward the Transamerica Tower

This was my first time in the Ferry Building Marketplace which had become an upscale hall of shops and restaurants. There were beautiful bakeries, charcuteries, chocolatiers, fresh vegetables…a shrine to the best of California. I remember being impressed by a store dedicated solely to California olive oils, the first time I encountered the concept of olive oil tastings. There were a wide variety of restaurants and food vendors. We eventually decided on places to get food and enjoyed our lunch outside watching the boat and bird activity on the water near the towering Bay Bridge.

We returned to the hotel for a rest before heading back to Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner at Scoma’s. This was one of my favorite San Francisco restaurants ever since I stumbled upon it on my first business trip to the city more than 20 years earlier. It was a tourist destination even then, I suppose, and became even more of one, but I still enjoyed it as something I found on my own.

Monday, August 14 – San Francisco

I guess we must have rented a car at the airport and just parked it in town for a few days because all of a sudden we had wheels on this morning for a driving tour of the city. I tried my best to recreate an epic walk I had taken on one of my first business trips to San Francisco when I found myself with a free day in the city. Twenty years before, I had taken a bus to Golden Gate Park and hiked all through the park, up the coastline to the Cliff House and then through the Presidio and Golden Gate Bridge, capped off by the first time I wandered into Scoma’s on Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner. Mapping it out now, it was at least a 12-mile walk. I knew Barb and Allie couldn’t walk that far, but we retraced it pretty well in the car in a few hours.

We drove by the famous Painted Ladies houses on Alamo Square and then entered Golden Gate Park. We stopped near the Japanese Tea Garden and took a little time to explore and stretch our legs.

We drove through the rest of the park, then turned right at the Pacific Ocean to get to The Cliff House. We took in views of the seals and wandered the gift shop. Allie and I took a quick clamber down to the ruins of the Sutro Baths.

We drove through the pretty Sea Cliff neighborhood and walked down to Baker Beach for its great view of the Golden Gate.

We continued our drive through the Presidio and found a place to park on the east side of the Golden Gate. I think by this time we’d lost Allie to a nap in the back seat and probably Barb as well. I think I’m the only one that got out to take some more shots of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I took the opportunity to go all the way up to the bridge and walk a little way along it for the first time. Too bad the girls missed it.

We finished the drive by going down the famous twisty curves of Lombard Street.

We had a second big adventure lined up for later in the day, an evening tour of Alcatraz. This was (and still is) the #1 rated activity on TripAdvisor for San Francisco and we’d reserved our slots well in advance. We gathered at the assigned pier in the late afternoon and waited for our tour boat to take us to the prison island.

This was a first time visit for all of us to Alcatraz, one of the places I’d always wanted to see. One of Allie’s favorite books I’d been reading to her was Al Capone Does My Shirts, so we had that as a touchstone, plus my memory of seeing Burt Lancaster in The Birdman of Alcatraz on TV in my youth.

The short ride over afforded excellent views of San Francisco and also a first-hand glimpse of the fast-moving currents and chilly water that prevented escapes from the island.

Once docked, we were met by our Park Service Ranger guide and started a steeper-than-expected trudge uphill to the prison. Barb immediately scooted to the front and started peppering the guide with questions about the prison and its history, particularly about the Al Capone Does My Shirts book. She kept this up through the tour, showing both a good background knowledge of the place (where did that come from?) and a lot of interest. I’d seen her do this before with tour guides and marveled at both her enthusiasm and willingness to ask questions that were sometimes obvious, often insightful and never dumb. The guides, in turn, often became more engaging when they had someone to nudge them off their prepared script.

In this case, when the regular tour concluded, our guide asked Barb if we wanted to see a bit more of the site, usually off-limits to everyday tourists. We got a private tour for another 20 minutes or so, seeing more prisoner cells, the medical facility and more. It was a terrific bonus, earned entirely by Barb’s inquisitiveness.

One of the reasons we’d taken this particular evening tour was because it was highly rated as something out of the ordinary, and I suppose that was reflected in our guide being willing to spend a little more time with us — that probably couldn’t have happened in the middle of the day. On the other hand, Alcatraz after dark gets pretty cold and spooky, especially once the few visitor facilities close shop. All three of us were ready to leave about 30 minutes before the boat finally arrived to take us back. It had been a long but memorable day for all of us. I tried to capture our sentiments in my 4-star TripAdvisor review of this tour.

Tuesday, August 15 – Chinatown

This day featured a 10am walking tour of Chinatown. We reserved the Wok Wiz tour based on TripAdvisor recommendations. We joined about a dozen other tourists under the guidance of Dorothy Quock, who was born and raised in Chinatown. (Dorothy has become an institution herself, still guiding tours in 2019 at age 85; she helped with a 2017 documentary, Forever, Chinatown, which is totally delightful and highly recommended.)

Dorothy was an excellent guide, with lots of stories and historical details we never would have gotten on our own. The tour highlighted Chinatown as a living neighborhood of families, not simply a tourist trap or urban theme park. The tour ended with a decent dim sum meal in one of the Chinese restaurants we probably never would have entered. I posted a 5-star TripAdvisor review of this tour.

We spent another hour or two tagging after Barb as she scoured Chinatown’s shops for mementos to bring back home to office comrades and various children.

Later in the day the girls did some shopping and maybe had tea in Union Square. Here are photos of Allie with an American Girl display, but I can’t find any evidence of an actual American Girl store or anything there. Nevertheless, here are our pictures, along with Allie at one of the Hearts in San Francisco sculptures in the square. Seeing as Allie’s in a different outfit advertising the American Girl Place in New York, I guess it’s possible the American Girl pictures are from an entirely getaway that Barb did with Allie to NYC…but why are the photos sandwiched here in our San Francisco sequence? It’s a mystery…perhaps Barb or Allie can clarify.

Wednesday, August 16 – Monterey

We decamped from The Orchard Hotel and headed southwest for a day in Monterey Bay. We drove past the tech-famous towns of Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View, Cupertino, Los Gatos…) and crossed the peninsula to Santa Cruz. I’d never been to this hippie-famous town and we had a few hours to kill before we could check into our hotel, so we explored Santa Cruz for a bit. We found our way to the Santa Cruz Wharf to begin, then found a place nearby for lunch. I can’t say we gave Santa Cruz its due, but we headed onward to Monterey pretty quickly.

Once we got to Monterey we still had some time before checking in and one way or another we found out about the Dennis the Menace playground. We let Allie blow off some steam on a climbing wall and a locomotive. The train was put off-limits in 2012 for safety reasons, but Allie had a great time climbing on it.

We finally checked into our hotel, the Monterey Bay Inn, around 3pm and got our bundled passes for the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium. We walked down Cannery Row for an afternoon at the Aquarium. It didn’t disappoint. We had a great time seeing the wonderful jellyfish, otters, penguins, a magnificent Open Sea tank, and much more. The exhibits and docents were equally terrific. We covered the aquarium pretty well in four hours but I’m sure I could return and spend hours more just watching the jellyfish or otters.

We had a good dinner at one of the Cannery Row restaurants and retired to our hotel, which included a view of the Bay and an occasional otter.

Thursday, August 17 – Monterey – Santa Rosa

When I was planning this trip, I’d intended to stay several days in Monterey or Pebble Beach and finally have the opportunity to drive Big Sur, possibly all the way down to San Simeon and the Hearst Castle. I’ve never done the legendary drive south of Carmel and it’s long been a bucket list item for me. My original plan was to stay at the Inn at Spanish Bay, to show Barb and Allie the location of the FutureOp conference I had run for Spirent back in 2001. It was one of the triumphs of my erstwhile career and also simply a nice hotel, one of the Pebble Beach Resorts properties.

When I tried to make reservations, however, I found that our timing overlapped with Monterey Car Week, an ultra-luxe annual festival where the super-rich buy, sell and be seen among the world’s most exotic, expensive cars. Rather like the Sturgis motorcycle rally, I had no idea it was happening until we bumped into it. The Inn at Spanish Bay and all the Pebble Beach Resorts properties were completely booked. As it was, I could only get one night at the Monterey Inn, and it was by far the most expensive single night on our trip.

So, Big Sur would have to wait, but we were able to go over to the Inn at Spanish Bay and have a nice lunch in Roy’s at Pebble Beach, sparking memories of Hawaii as well. I drove Barb and Allie around a bit of the rest of Pebble Beach and Carmel, then we pivoted and headed north up the Pacific coast, past Half Moon Bay and eventually past the Cliff House again.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped on the other side for obligatory photos.

We made a small detour into Muir Woods National Monument to give Allie (and Barb, if we could keep her awake) her first glimpse of redwoods. This park is one of my favorite spots, a remarkable little grove of redwoods preserved so near San Francisco.

Our destination was Santa Rosa in Sonoma County where Gerry Carlson, Barb’s favorite teacher from Dusseldorf, lived. Barb and Gerry had kept in Christmas card touch over the years and Gerry invited us to stay with her when she found we were planning a California trip. I had met her once or twice over the years when she traveled east and was happy to see her again. She proved to be an excellent and gracious host, of which we’d had no doubt. We settled into her house and got caught up over wine and cheese. Gerry chose a very nice restaurant at a Sonoma vineyard for dinner.

Friday, August 18 – Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa was the home of Peanuts creator Charles Schultz and houses an excellent museum dedicated to his memory. We had a lot of fun recounting comic strips that Barb and I grew up on, with Allie seeing many for the first time. Allie was well-versed, however, in the Charlie Brown Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween TV specials, annual staples in our home. We learned a lot we didn’t know about Charles Schultz’s life and enjoyed an excellent few hours.

Gerry took us on a drive over the mountains to the sea near Sonoma Coast State Park. After a long drive it was not really much different than Monterey Bay, just wilder and more desolate. It was also a reminder of how big an impact the cold water and marine layer of fog have on the ocean side of the coastal mountains. It was a warm, sunny day inland; not so at the coast. No wonder there’s actually not a lot of development right on the coast in Northern California.

We headed back to Gerry’s house for a restful evening. I can’t remember any specifics of dinner or entertainment that evening; I think we were all happy to take it easy.

Saturday, August 19 – Yosemite Valley

We thanked Gerry for her excellent hospitality and headed to our next big adventure, Yosemite National Park, which necessitated a 5-hour drive around the north side of San Francisco Bay then east through the Central Valley of California.

It was a long drive through a whole lot of agriculture, and I’m pretty sure we mostly listened to Jim Dale’s audiobook version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which had come out the year before. Barb and Allie had read the all the Harry Potter books, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t listen to them again. I have to admit it helped make the hours in the car melt away.

We were eager to get to Yosemite and see what we could see that afternoon. Our first glimpse came from miles away.

We drove straight into the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center, parked our car, got oriented and saw the Park Service film, then got on a tram tour led by a park ranger. You couldn’t drive your own car into the valley in peak season, which was a good idea as far as I was concerned. The Valley Floor tram tour made stops at the best spots for photos and the ranger provided lots of informative details.

The tour stopped streamside at the Merced River for an excellent view of the valley, from El Capitan to Bridalveil Fall.

Allie had even more fun climbing on the Merced River stones.

After the tour, as we drove out of Yosemite Valley we stopped at a point called Tunnel View, “the view that Ansel Adams made famous.” Ansel Adams took many iconic shots of Yosemite; his work, along with John Muir’s writing, helped cement Yosemite’s hold on America’s imagination. They were certainly right: it’s an iconic location, one that doesn’t disappoint.

One of Ansel’s many versions. OK, he wins…but mine are pretty good

I wanted to stay at the Ahwahnee Hotel, the classic gem inside the park at Yosemite Valley, but even planning months ahead, the hotel was full. We made reservations instead at Tenaya Lodge, a larger, modern hotel just outside the south gate of the National Park, about an hour from Yosemite Valley. We settled in for two nights.

Sunday, August 20 – Yosemite

The next morning, we headed back into Yosemite Valley to take the short hike to Lower Yosemite Falls.

Allie found a nice nook to climb in along the way.

There seemed to be more people than water flowing at Lower Yosemite Falls, but Allie and I had a good time scrambling on the rocks while Barb found a place to sit. There was a more difficult 7-mile trail to the top of Yosemite Falls and an intermediate 2-mile trail to Columbia Rock but there was not a prayer any of us were going to do either of those. We considered it an accomplishment to do the 1-mile Lower Falls trail, declared victory and headed back to the car.

Allie (and just Allie) at Lower Yosemite Falls

We drove out of the valley and climbed to Glacier Point for some of the best views of the whole park.

We found someone else appreciating the views.

I wondered if it was the same squirrel we saw admiring the Grand Canyon the year before. Could be…maybe he was wondering the same about us.

I had been to Yosemite National Park once before: when I was about 6-years old we took a long family summer vacation to Mexico, the Grand Canyon and California just before we moved to Aruba (see end of this post for more). The main memory I had from Yosemite, the firefall from Glacier Point, was discontinued in 1968. When we were taking the tour with the park ranger the day before, I asked about the firefall and she was appalled. “We don’t do that anymore!”, she exclaimed.

Laurie and Sue have distinct memories from that first trip of staying in a cabin at Camp Curry, but my memories of that are only vague. It’s now called Curry Village and has seen its share of problems, including a big rockslide in 2008 and a virus outbreak in 2012 that led to removal of many of its buildings. Similarly, the Glacier Point Hotel, where I think we had a meal, burned down in 1969. Seems like the man-made intrusions on the park are wearing away faster than the natural beauties. That seems like a good thing, overall.

We left Glacier Point and headed down to Mariposa Grove, not far from our hotel, to see an ancient grove of sequoia trees. The first thing you see near the parking area is The Fallen Monarch that fell more than 300 years ago. Allie had a great temptation to climb on it. Good thing there’s a sign.

We embarked on the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail, a moderate 2-mile loop. There are a number of famous trees that have been given names for us tourists. One is the Grizzly Giant, the oldest tree in the grove, estimated over 1,800 years old.

Another famous set of trees are the Bachelor and Three Graces, a grouping of sequoias growing unusually close together. Some of these shots are of them, others were just efforts to capture the grandeur of these giants.

A few more shots in Mariposa Grove.

Grafitti is not nearly as informative as the Muir Park timeline

And then there’s the California Tunnel Tree with a hole cut through just for tourist photos. The hole was cut in 1895 for horse-drawn coaches to drive through.

I dimly recalled from our first visit in 1964 that there was another tree you could drive through…and indeed there was. It was the Wawona Tree that fell in 1969, another victim of misguided human ambitions and a heavy snow pack.

It’s truly humbling to wander among these giants, many of them more than 1,000 years old. They deserve care and seem to finally be getting better treatment, but there are just a few fragile groves scattered over California. We would see more of their cousins at Redwoods National Park in a few days. What’s the difference between a Sequoia and Redwood? Mostly their habitat, it turns out — Redwoods near the coast and Sequoias inland.

Monday, August 21 – Yosemite to Redding

We checked out of the Tenaya Lodge and embarked on a long driving day. Destination: Redding, California, about 6 hours and many Harry Potter chapters away. I can’t say much about this drive because I don’t remember much of anything. If we stopped in Sacramento at all it may have been to grab lunch at a McDonald’s. North of Sacramento was a long, flat interstate highway with little but industrial agriculture as far as the eye could see. And trucks. I remember a lot of trucks on the highway.

I’d chosen Redding as our stop for the night mainly because there were no real alternatives within reasonable driving distance. Also, I’d seen some articles saying the town’s riverside, featuring the futuristic Sundial Bridge, was something of a model for rising small towns. Redding advertises itself as the gateway to Northern California and headquarters for outdoor adventures.

We finally got to Redding and checked into a Super 8 Motel recommended by TripAdvisor. Years later, Jason Isbell recorded a song, Super 8, with the chorus, “Don’t wanna die in a Super 8 motel, just because somebody’s evening didn’t go so well.” The song always reminds me of our night in Redding. The Super 8’s walls were paper thin and the accommodations as spartan as could be. We eventually slept, but not soundly.

Before settling in for the night, we drove into town, wandered around a while in the car and a little on foot and found very little worthy of note, much less worth photographing. We found a restaurant, recommended by TripAdvisor, that was actually pretty good but there was little else in town that made much of a dent. But then, we were not there looking for outdoor adventures.

Tuesday, August 22 – Redding to Redwoods National Park to Bandon Dunes

We headed out the next morning toward the coast. I felt a little bad that we were bypassing Mount Shasta and Lassen National Park which no doubt offered scenic views and a wealth of dreaded outdoor adventures, but they were many hours in the wrong direction for our route.

I was surprised it took almost three hours driving over winding, twisty, heavily forested roads to get to Eureka on the coast. We hunted for bathrooms and an early lunch in Eureka and were pleasantly surprised by the town’s very pretty downtown of Victorian buildings and a decidedly counterculture vibe. I didn’t understand then that this was becoming the heart of the “Emerald Triangle” for cannabis growers. We had a fine lunch — interesting bagel sandwiches, as I recall — and headed on our way north though I wouldn’t mind visiting this little outpost again someday.

Our highlight destination for the day was Redwood National Park, actually a cluster of national and state parks in far northwest California. We found our way to Prairie Creek visitor center and the main scenic drive. The visitor center, along with much of the park, was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, always one of our favorite Federal initiatives. The drive itself was excellent, starting with unexpected prairie and and a herd of elk.

The redwoods themselves did not disappoint. This park is obviously much less visited than Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove, so there’s not nearly the same tourist infrastructure or “famous” trees, but the trees themselves are much more ubiquitous. The forest canopy is more like a cathedral and it’s very pleasant to wander in quiet, contemplative solitude. We were only there for a couple of hours, at most, but I can certainly see the appeal of spending more time in these parks…though it would involve more camping and hiking than we would ever do.

As we exited the main drive, we came upon the Trees of Mystery tourist trap, featuring its huge sculptures of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe. We stopped at the gift shop and enjoyed the sculptures, but didn’t take the Trees of Mystery tour. It will remain a mystery.

In the parking lot we met a prototypical laid-back California dog in the back of a pickup truck. He was sweet but a little forlorn, wanting to be friends with anyone who passed by. It was like connecting with a lost soul for a moment, but we had miles to go.

We proceeded north into Oregon toward our destination, the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. Along the way, we stopped at Gold Beach for our first views of the Oregon coastline.

Bandon Dunes was a golf destination I had read about, a complex of three (now six) courses started in 1999 to rival Pebble Beach and reputed to be some of the best in the world. We got there in time for a peaceful sunset walk on the beach.

Wednesday, August 23 – Bandon Dunes

Two of the courses were links style, reminiscent of Scotland. I can’t remember if I actually played the Bandon Dunes or Pacific Dunes course (probably Pacific Dunes which had just been ranked the best public course in the nation by Golfweek the year earlier), but I had a good time. It was quite like Scotland. I think they let me play alone, which is unusual. No carts were allowed and I took an unusual number of photos of the course as I walked. Kindly indulge me.

While I was playing golf, the girls went back down to Gold Beach and took a jetboat tour up the Rogue River, following the “historic Mail Boat route.” Allie was in charge of the camera. I think the girls had a good time, seeing some wildlife and getting just a little splashed on the boat.

That evening, Allie and I went back on the beach for sunset. Allie found a cool pyramid rock to climb.

Thursday, August 24 – Bandon Dunes to Portland

We left Bandon Dunes after two nights and continued heading northward toward Portland. As we were driving up the coast, we came across the Oregon Dunes National Recreational Area. I don’t think we knew about it ahead of time but once we got a glimpse we knew we had to stop and play. We found a parking area and there was no stopping Allie. I huffed and puffed to keep up, climbing in the loose sand to go from ridge to ridge. They were the most beautiful sand dunes I’d ever seen, reminiscent of Jockey’s Ridge in Nags Head, but somehow even softer and whiter…and not as hot in the summer sun. We saw sandboarders for the first time, a variant of snowboarding. It looked fun except for the climbing back uphill.

From the dunes, we headed straight to Portland and stayed with Cousin Susan (Barnett) and Jim Rech at their lovely house for two nights. Somehow we managed not to take any photos with them. Susan and Jim were our favorites of the Barnett side of the family and had long been very nice to me and Barb, ever since they lived in Buckeystown, Maryland decades before.

Several years before, I had been at a customer visit in Portland for a couple of nights and out of the blue called Susan and Jim to see if I could come over one evening to see them. They were happy to accommodate me (well, Susan maybe a little happier than Jim, but they were both nice about it). Susan had some salmon in the fridge and I helped them grill it (they’d never cooked it that way…I don’t think Susan cooked a lot). I had some time the next day before my flight and they clued me into a drive up the Columbia River to Multnomah Falls and The Dalles which I quite enjoyed. I thought about doing that same drive with Barb and Allie but Susan and Jim suggested since we had the whole day we should really visit Mount St. Helen’s.

Friday, August 25 – Mount St. Helen’s

So that’s what we did, driving about two hours north of Portland to see the site of the 1980 eruption. The drive up to Mount St. Helen’s is quite pretty, crossing the Columbia River and eventually climbing through wooded foothills with evidence of forest replanting. It made me realize the heavy extent of forestry in the region, where trees are grown basically as long-term crops.

There are actually multiple visitor centers associated with Mount St. Helen’s. We started with the Forest Learning Center (brought to you by Weyerhauser!) which offers a lot of information about the volcano and the 1980 eruption. Allie especially enjoyed the cockpit from one of the helicopters used to monitor the volcano before and after the blast.

We drove around the north side of Mount St. Helen’s, entering the blast zone which was still recovering some 25 years later. The landscape became noticeably more desolate, and as we got closer we started seeing trees toppled like matchsticks from the blast. We stopped in the Johnston Ridge visitor center, closest to the volcano, to learn more.

We drove from the Johnston Ridge center a bit further to several overlooks that give a sobering view of the destruction. I remember the 1980 eruption, the awful images of the explosion, stories of some of the people lost in the blast, and the towering column of smoke that wafted over much of the country and disrupted air travel for weeks. Still, my memories were no match for actually seeing the site, the scale of destruction and slow recovery of flora and fauna. The photos don’t really capture the scale of the destruction and remaining scars. It was humbling.

Brightening the mood a little, we came across a touristing squirrel (or was this one a chipmunk?), perhaps our same friend from Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.

That evening, Jim and Susan took us to a nice restaurant in downtown Portland where we met their daughter Katie and her boyfriend, Freydie, whom she later married. It was a very nice evening and culmination of our vacation.

The next day we flew back to Baltimore and our East Coast lives. This journey to the West Coast was an excellent vacation, I felt. We mixed in some great sights, some relaxation and some friends and family along with a lot of miles. It’s a nice model for a trip, when one can pull it off.