Leaving tomorrow to head up the PCH, see the sights.

Going through San Francisco, Eureka, Eugene-Oregon, back down to Sacremento, and back home to L.A.

Besides big sur, and everything related to the coast, is there anything else I should see?

Stop for lunch in Cambria.  Just north of there, Hearst Castle is worth a stop - take a tour.

On that note the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose is worth a stop as well.

Just past Hearst Castle is the Elephant Seal rookery at Piedras Blancas.  Definitely need to stop, although probably not a lot of big ones this time of year.  http://www.elephantseal.org/index.html

a little further up  Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park - The only spot on the west coast where a stream waterfalls of a cliff in to the ocean



Point Lobos State Reserve just south of Carmel is a beautiful stop.

If you luck out, you can often see Grey whales and Blue whales not too far out while driving 1 along Big Sur.

Just south of Eureka - Loleta Cheese Factory  small cheese company, makes a variety of cheeses right behind the big windows in the sales room.  The sales room has samples, lots and lots of samples.  Even if you don't particularly care for cheese, you'll find something you like.  http://www.destinationtba.com/2014/05/09/loleta-california/

Ferndale - a small town built mostly at the height of the lumber industry and with all the mills and mill works around, they went the limit.  About a square mile packed with Victorian Buildings and houses, almost all painted authentically.




Eureka -

Samoa Cookhouse - Just over the bridge from Eureka, formerly the cookhouse in a logging company mill town.  Basically served family style, usually just a few entrees, veggies, soup, salad, made and served just like it was in the old days.  Just down the road is the former navy airship station, the location of some coast defense guns, mostly AA and the Coast Guard Lifeboat Station (drive down there, too, to settle your dinner)

Ft. Humboldt State Park, display of old logging equipment, and home of a few operating dinky steam engines

Blue Ox Millworks - tours of original millworks including man-powered saws, lathes, milllworking machinery, Able to make just about anything for building houses, buildings, decorations, etc made of wood.  They source millworks to restorations, artists, museums, new construction all over the world.  Want to see how they made pickets for picket fences all the same size and shape, they show you.  If there is even a hint of craftsman in you, this stop is required.

Take a tour of the downtown area, crammed with ornate Victorian buildings, but larger than Ferndale, Eureka was the big city then and now and the larger buildings in the business district reflect it.  Also a lot of Victorian houses.

If you continue north along the coast, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, go out to Gold Bluffs Beach and Fern Canyon.  The Canyon hike is about a hundred yards or so from the parking lot and then roughly a mile through this small canyon varying for maybe 20 fett to 40 yds wide, the walls are covered with several kinds of ferns, you walk along the creek bed, mostly on dry gravel portions of the bottom, but there are some fallen logs you need to climb over or walk along to cross the creek and there are a few foot bridges.

The "Avenue of The Giants" is a fun and beautiful drive. It parallels Hwy 101 for about 30 miles. Give yourself a few hours to see the sights along the way.

http://avenueofthegiants.net/

Tom

A few phone pics. Better pics on my camera. I'll load the good ones up once I get the laptop set up.

I made it to Monterey and enjoyed the trip up the PCH so far. Beautiful day today. Big Sur was great. I'll be heading to Eureka tommorow.
I'll go through the redwoods and the Blue Ox Millworks sounds like my kind of stop. Been to Hearst castle and winchester house.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some pics later on that some of you can use as wallpaper. These aren't the ones.....

Any updates?

Tom

A few more pics.
These are a few of the ones I got from just driving up PCH






These are from lobos point in monterey bay and the avenue of giants




Once in humbolt county we hit the PCH one last time before heading out of Eureka and ending up in Eugene.







Finally ended up in Eugene... and the blue pool.

Crater lake

Yosemite National Park was well worth the trip from the coast when we were there in '93.

El Capitan and Bridal Veil Falls are really cool.

One of our favorite places is Fern Canyon ..IIRC its about 5 miles south of Elk Prairie state park

Is that a half-hidden BIGFOOT in the background?

That right there was fern canyon. If it was bigfoot, then he is a master ninja cause we walked right through there.

Anyway we're in sacrament today for the last leg of the trip. Then it's a straight shot back home to van nuys.

Some thoughts while traveling.
1. I assumed that California was a desert, actually it's the most perfect mix of every type of climate America has to offer. And in abundance too.

2. Liberals occur naturally within large city limits. If the city is not as compact, people are more self sufficient.  Anti gunners are not a Californian construct but the unfortunate side effect of psychological projection from the lazy and weak minded.

3. There is a lot of farm land here!

4. while I was in Oregon, I had stopped at a local gas station and got out to fill my own gas. when I got out I saw that there was somebody opening the gas cap on my car, and before I could knock him out he explained to me how he worked at that gas station and he was supposed to fill my gas for me. I thought "Great"! but then when I went to a Costco and tried to fill up my gas myself, a worker there told me that I couldn't fill my own gas because of state law. yeah I think that's bullshit.

5. Cabellas is having a sale on 223.

6. Being from the Los Angeles area i have to admit Sacramento has its nice parts. For example old town sacrament was pretty cool. I'll have to go back again one day.

Old town is fun and I have always loved the train exibits there.  Syops=PSYOP? which Bn if so?

Ooh and that was my 500th post.  damn that went quick.

It is...you were just in the nice parts

Lot of liberals behind the Redwood Curtain, too.

Did you breakdown and buy a waving bear?

Hell no. And I didn't stop for confusion hill, the Bigfoot shop, or to take a closer look at that hidden hippie commune that lives on Avenue of giants. I was more interested in the natural sights themselves.

Plus a few stops at Cabelas and a few estate sales never hurts.

I snagged a few of these old gun rags. Dated between 1989 and 84. They had showed how little the argument against gun control has changed, but it showed me that gun grabbers were constantly looking for new ways to keep their lies a float.