San Francisco 17/9

Yesterday we returned the car to Alamo and there weren't even any raised eyebrows at the 5000+ miles that we had used. The young woman even gave Bob a $50 refund for the oil and filters change that he had paid for. The mechanic told us that the air filter was dirty from all the smoke we had been driving through.
We then caught the train from the Airport into town for some final bits of shopping. Bob was a bit amazed at the quantity of seersucker that I bought for new table cloths for the Country Club but the US is the only place to buy 60 inch wide seersucker and we need that width. I only bought enough for three cloths but that is quite a bulky parcel and he always has caniptions about my shopping. We always fit it in and we always comply with the weight rules.😀
From downtown we walked uppp over the hill and dooown the hill to the Fishermen's Market for lunch. We opted to walk because we couldn't find the bus stop for the trolley bus and the old fashioed Powell Street tourist trolley had huge queues. After we crested the hill I said that I had been happy to walk one way but we needed to find a ride back!
We had a crab salad for lunch just to experience the tourist thing  but agreed that we had been spoilt but eating our own marron. The crab was just the meat from the claws and not from the body of the crab, Then we found the trolley bus stop and rode in comfort back to the train station for the trip back to the hotel.
Last night we went to the Japanese/Korean restaurant across the road and had a great Koream BBQ dinner. Bob has plans for Udon Soup for lunch after we have been for a walk along the foreshore.
This will probably be my last post from the USA as we have to vacate the hotel in the morning and fly out just before midnight tomorrow. I have scoped out showers at the airport so we can wash off the days sweat before we board and to fill in some time. It will no doubt be a long day. Talk to you when we get home.

Return to San Francisco 15/9

I must have been in a very vague space yesterday because I wrote that we were in Cleaverville when it was actually Cloverdale. Cleaverville rings bells from somewhere in our history and I usually write early in the morning while I am waiting for Bob to wake up so I obviously wasn't quite awake myself.
As we drove down the 101 yesterday morning Bob commented on the speed of the traffic. The speed limit was 55 mph, we were doing 65mph and most of the vehicles were streaming past us. Clearly the speed limit was viewed as only advisory. We did notice that conformity increased as we came closer to larger cities enroute.
The early part of our drive was through the valley around Santa Rosa and my comments from the previous days boutique wineries did not hold up here. The valley floor and surrounding hills were covered in vines. It made a beautiful picture with the bright green neat plantings edged by the yellowed grass of autumn.
We stopped off at a Walmart to do some final bargain hunting. Bob found a pair of light weight Wrangler jeans that he had been hunting for at their usual $20 price. Winter stock is taking over here so he was pleased to find this summer weight pair at our last check.
We didn't have a long drive today and had worked out how to pay the toll for the Golden Gate Bridge if the GPS took us into San Francisco on that route. However it soon became apparent that "she"was taking us around through The outer suburbs towards the other bridges. We then became stuck in a very congested section of Hway with wall to wall trucks and inched along for 20 minutes before clearing a port area where the trucks left us. By now I had pulled the map out to see where we were heading  and realised that the GPS was taking us a long way south towards San Jose. The mental tumblers began to rattle and we realised that "she" was still programmed to avoid toll roads. Fortunately there was a bridge exit coming up which we managed to take and we happily paid the $5 toll saving ourselves an extra 30 miles around the end of the bay. There wasn't a major worry time wise as we were too early to check into our hotel. It was just the pressure of dealing with the city traffic. We found a car wash close to the hotel and sat in comfort while we drove through the automatic system.. it was really disorienting to feel as if the car was moving as the machine worked back and forwards giving it a thorough scrub.
We have checked into the Airport Hyatt for three nights as a wind down treat to ourselves before the 27 hour flight home. Internet booking made this usually pricey place quite competative with every other motel/hotel in San Francisco which is very expensive. We decided that we deserved a treat and it is very convenient with a shuttle to the airport coupled with the cheap tourist fare on the train into the city. We will return the car to the rental depot this morning and spend the next few days repacking and pottering around the city.
For those of you who hadn't read yesterdays post when i wrote this i need to explain that I managed to edit Cleaverville out and insert the correct name Cloverdale.

Photos from the 101 14/9

You can just see the back of Bob's hat at the bottom if the picture as he cranes his head to look up at thr Redwoods.

I forgot to mention this little fellow. He is  Banana Slug who had fallen out of his tree and sadly wasn't long for this world.

Hway 101 scenery.

Arcata to Cloverdale Thurs 14 /9

Our planned route was to follow the 101 Hway as it passed through the Avenue of the Giants initially and then swing back to the coast down to Albion before we cut across to Cleaverville. What I hadn't understood looking at our map was that the Redwood Highway was a 32 mile section of the old 101 which was parallel to the new road and was retained to provide access to the Redwood groves that had been preserved by the conservation movement. There were small communities remaining along the Avenue which survive on the tourist trade.  We entered this road quite early in the morning and found the self guide pamphlet which suggested that the nicest short walk was just down the road. We decided to take this 2.5  mile stroll and thoroughly enjoyed strolling along the path looking and photographing with hardly anyone else around. We could hear the traffic on the 101 at one point and really appreciated the foresight of the people who had worked to save these groves. The trees are just wonderful. They are soooo tall and amazingly resilient. They have natural fire resistance because their bark is very thick and lacks resin. They can be damaged by fire but like the Tingles can buttress around the damage. Only after repeated fire attacks do they succumb and I did see one burnt out stump..  More seem to be blown over and it takes a long time for them to break down because they are so big so they provide nutrients for the next generation. By the time we were returning to the car more people were arriving to walk so we were glad to have had the quiet time. We heard quite a lot of birds and even heard a woodpecker though he was so high up we couldn't see him.
We then drove on through the Avenue and rejoined the 101 heading for the coast. At lunchtime we found a rest stop which had one picnic table. A young Dutch couple arrived at the same time with the same intention so we shared the table and chatted about our respective travels. The coastal drive down to Fort Bragg and Albion is beautiful and is more scenic than the Big Sur section south of San Francisco in our opinion. We were so close to the ocean cliffs most of the time that we were held up a couple of times by roadworks where they were repairing places where the road edge had given way in last Winters storms.
From Albion to Cloverdale the road followed the river valley and wound over the coastal hills. We passed through more groves of Redwoods though this time they were "River Redwoods" and not as quite as tall. The whole road was shaded by trees of various sorts and we passed through vineyards of the boutique variety. Smaller than the extensive plantings at home or in the Nappa Valley. The day had been pleasantly cool but warmed up as we headed inland.
Cloverdale is an attractive "artsy" town and it was relaxing to stroll the main street while our laundry tumbled. We decided to have pizza for dinner with a bottle of wine we had been carrying for a while. We really are slow to learn, we ordered a large with extra toppings because Aamerican Pizza is sometimes very limited in what goes on top. This was HUGE and wasn't even the largest size. It had plenty of veges on it as well as the chicken and anchovies we had ordered. We could only manage half of it and just hope the cleaner has some hungry children who are not too fussy.

Photos of the Redwoods

These trees are so tall it is impossible to photgraph their full height. Note the comparison with our car.

Bob beside fallen giant.

Best I could do to give impression of the forest.

Root system f a big one.

Medford to Acarta. Back to the 101

Driving out of Medford we were struck by the influence of the Rogue River. It was funny to see the Rogue Community Centre, Rogue Community College and the Rogue Bank. Would you feel comfortable leaving your money in that bank?
There was still some evidence of the fires in the area and we passed a large "fire camp" set up on vacant land beside the river. There was also roadworks going on as the roads were being repaired for winter. There were still repairs being done to the 101 where land slips during last winters heavy rains caused the edges of the road to vanish down the hill. This reduced the road to one lane and we were either escorted through the roadworks or had our turn to proceed managed by traffic lghts.
Close to the coast we entered Redwood Country.. These trees are so magnificent that we pulled into a layby just to look at them. Then we discovered that there was a day use area just up the road with a short walk and we stopped there to take the walk. This was lovely and peaceful with people just quietly rambling around enjoying the forest. We learnt from small plaques around the walk that most of the Redwood Forest pockets have been saved by private individuals purchasing the land and handing it over to the State and  National Parks to be managed. As we left the forest and turned south on the coast road there was an abrupt change in the weather. While the forest had been cool we now encountered the Pacific Ocean fog bank that California is famous for. Hunting for a lunch spot we found a picnic area right on the beach and had to haul out jumpers because of the cool wind. We had set off in shorts and T shirts and I had goose bumps on my legs by the time we retrned to the car.
We had found a "Fred Meyer" store as we left Medford and discovered that they sell their French Bread in paper bags so they don't go soft and they also had a real deli where I could buy sliced cold meat by the ounce and not predigested and packaged in plastic. We had a good lunch despite the wind.
We stopped at a National Parks information centre and for the first time found the person responding to our queries was not very knowledgeable about the area. This was only realised after we had driven down the road and opened up a magazine we had picked up discovering we had just left an area we would have explored more thoroughly. Fortunately there a more Redwoods ahead of us.
Our motel is comfortable as usual. Having checked out the two nearest options for dinner we had Mexican and both enjoyed our menu choices.

Photos of Crater Llake And Rogue Canyon

Rogue Canyon. This small section doesn't convey the impact of the 500 yards of the Canyon that was all white water like this.

First viewpoint of Crater Lake.

The Phantom Ship remnant of an eruption.

Rainbow Trout in the fish cleaning shed.