Dave Goes Outside: Road Tripping the Edge of the World: Day 1- too much driving

So to celebrate 4 happy years with each other, me and my girlfriend decided that our anniversary trip this year needed to be on par with our past trips. Two years ago we visited Crater Lake. Last year we visited the Oregon Desert and John Day area. This year, we had several options on the table, and we eventually settled on something I've wanted to do for a long time: Road Trip the Oregon Coast.

The rationale was basically: when the big earthquake hits, all that coast is going to get fucked up, so why not see it now? Also, the coast is pretty, lets go see it. So we began a plan. I'd like to say the plan was very well planned out, but due to my day job I wasn't sure how the scheduling would work out and it wasn't until a couple of weeks beforehand that we really started to nail it down. I took the responsibility of planning what we would see, my girlfriend found places to sleep and eat, since I'm a bohemian and she has the taste and knack for figuring that stuff out.

Bottom line came down to 4 days. We'd drive down to very Northern California, then slowly make our way back along HW 101. Day 1 would be mostly driving down to the Crescent City area and seeing what we could of the Redwood parks.

So the plan: Drive down I-5 to Grants Pass, take the Redwood HW to Crescent City, check out Redwood National and State parks, eat in CC, watch the sunset, sleep.

The actual day: Lots of driving and not much Redwoods.

We got out the door by 7:30, but Keeley had to send some emails, so we didn't get out of the city till about 8:30, thanks to some traffic as well. From here it was just a lot of driving to Grants Pass, OR. I'd never driven that far south on I-5, and Southern Oregon is rather pretty once you get out of the Willamette Valley and start entering the mountains. It took us 4 hours to hit Grants Pass, we switched drivers, and we started down the Redwood HW (route 199).

While on Route 199 Keeley informed me our first place of residence she got was along 199. We decided to scope the place out first, as she told me this place was very cheap.

Alarm bell #1.

I look at her phone, and the people have given directions to the cabin. Apparently google maps does not actually show you where the place is and you need specific directions.

Alarm bell #2.

The road is only paved for one mile of a 4 mile trip

Alarm bell #3

"look for the orange cone and smiley face, since the driveway is hard to find. Over the creek is a narrow bridge, if you think your car can't make it the creek is usually shallow enough to drive through"

Alarm bell #4

The road out there was gravel and in terrible shape. it was barely 1 car wide, with a steep drop into the wooded creeks on one side and a high cliff on the other. It was the farthest from civilization I've ever been, and man it was uncomfortable. I had zero cell service. I spent the whole time wondering how she had found this place on AirBNB when there was no way in hell they had internet or even electricity. This was 2pm in the afternoon and I was terrified we were wandering into a serial killer's domain. But eventually we reach the place, and believe it or not another car was just ahead of us. A young guy, probably still a teenager, came down to greet us with some dogs and I got the impression this was just a hippie camp. The people in the other car were here for a "treatment". Me and Keeley got a tour of the...camp...and it was clear these 3 nice people were just harmless hippies. Our cabin was half the size of a dorm room. In it was a bed, candles, a seat, and a small dresser. On the dresser sat a map of Redwoods state park. I took it. In the dresser drawer was 50 shades of grey. Alarm Bell #5.

They also had a home depot bucket for our waste. Not nearly as bad as 50 shades of grey, but yeah.

We got back in the car and drove out, 4 miles taking half an hour due to how crappy the road was. We couldn't decide whether or not to come back that night. The people were fine, the cabin was fine, but it was so out of the way. Whatever, we'd figure it out. We drove the rest of 199 to crescent city. Since the visit to investigate the hippies took an hour of our time, we elected to do one of the shorter scenic drives and just check out what we could. We stopped at a beach near the mouth of the Klamath river and explored, I wrecked my sandals on a branch, and we kept going.

False Klamath Cove

False Klamath cove

Facing south

False Klamath rock

We decided on the Coastal scenic drive, which drove through a small park on the cliffs on the mouth of the river. It was...eh. The day was cloudy, you couldn't see much besides blue looking outwards to the ocean. We saw an old WWII watch site.

old WWII watch stations

Klamath River mouth

Mist in Del Norte Coast redwoods state park

Klamath river sandbar

We left the drive deciding what to do next. We had been in the car for close to 9-10 hours, we were tired and hungry and didn't want to hike/explore. So we drove to Crescent City and had a lovely dinner at a tiny Italian place called Porcini's and watched the sunset. After an argument (I wanted to stay in CC and skip the drive back to hippies, she wanted to try it out) we drove back to hippies. The 3.6 miles of gravel in the dead of night made the drive even worse, and I fully expected a bear. We reached the hippie commune and walked to our cabin. It was silent and totally dark. I went outside with a candle to take a whiz, and I felt like I was going to get attacked and end up in the cold open of an X-Files episode.