Marathon Driving Days

7/23/2011

Today we awoke and wanted to get a move on, so we packed up and drove into the great blue beyond. Robert wanted to dig for clams before we left the beach, so he gave it a shot, he didn't find any. They are fast little buggers.

Clam Digger

From the car, I noticed two small dog?-like creatures near the water. We stopped and from my description to Robert, we realized they must have been otters. They were on their way our of the water into the rock piles, so they were there somewhere. Robert thought I was making it all up, beardecat (creature that causes false bear sightings) style, but then we found their footprints!

Otter Tracks

We continued our drive and landed in Eureka, CA. We were in hot pursuit of internet so we could blog a bit and sniffed out Old Town Coffee and Chocolates to do so. It was a cute local shop with recently fixed internet and excellent Chai Tea. We stayed there most of the afternoon and into the evening, leaving only once to get slices from Smug Pizza, which were excellent. As the evening wore on, a band came to play at the coffee shop and we were treated to some ear-splitting tunes. Our favorite song was the one where the guy played the theramin, pictured far right (under the top hat), but he only played that one song with the it.

Scotch Wiggly - Humboldt original cosmic rock

Eventually we drove out of town and into national forest to sleep. 

7/24/2011 
Drove into Redding and got more internet at Starbucks. The only interesting event of the day was lunch at Pho Saigon - they didn't have veggie pho (a common and expected occurrence at authentic places). I got bun instead and she put tofu on it for me, slimy worm-like tofu that had good flavor, but terrible texture. Robert enjoyed his pho ga thoroughly. After leaving Redding, we headed towards Lake Shasta, thinking we would have good camping options there. However, it is considered high season at Lake Shasta and even terrible camping has been converted into fee sites. We struggled deciding between paying $18 for too nice camping and paying $8 to camp on a patch of heavily abused dirt (baby diapers, broken glass, scrap metal, etc.). How can they charge for that?? We got annoyed at the situation and the park service in particular and refused to pay. We drove around and found a wide shoulder in which to camp. It was markedly cleaner than the pay site. Lake Shasta, why do people abuse you so?

7/25/2011
Today we drove some more! (see the pattern?) We headed north and escaped the pretentious and poorly managed lands of CA for Oregon. We went into Eugene to search out a hike in the REI book section, which we sort of use as our personal library. We did end up buying a book this time, so I guess it shakes out. We found a Backpacking Washington guide book by The Mountaineers and scoped out a prospective hike. Unfortunately, the REI seemed to carry books about WA hikes, but only OR maps. Very silly. We stocked up on groceries and headed out to forest land yet again. We took a chance on an unmarked road into the forest and followed it until it dead-ended into a private gate protecting a private bridge. Robert thankfully wanted to get out and look around and he spied a little trail near the bridge leading to an excellent riverside campsite! It is wonderful how quickly fortunes can change, especially when you think all hope is lost. Another grumpy night hunting camping? NO! Great free camping was delivered to us. Thank you camping gods! We set up shop and made creamy pasta, cuba libres and a nice fire.  

 7/26/2011
Here are a couple pictures I took of our campsite in the morning. 

Road dead ends and we thought we would have to turn back, no camping here

But wait! A little trail led to this gem of a campsite

Robert is king of packing the back. Here he is stowing the table using his homemade rope and carabiner system. 

We got back in the car and drove some more!! We went through Portland and picked up a map at the REI there, skipped the $5/load laundry in Portland proper and crossed into WA to Woodland (not to be confused with "THE" Woodlands, TX) where Robert held office hours at the LAUNDROMAT.

Laundry

After cleaning our clothes, we drove to Sunset Campground in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and paid for camping, too tired and grumpy from driving to be adventurous for once. 

7/27/11

We were awoken by an overly friendly park host who liked to drive his John Deere lawn mower around the park. He didn't seem to need or want anything besides a morning chat. He did let us get water from his well so we could shower and pointed us towards Sunset Falls, pictured below. We hung around camp, slowly packing provisions for our next hike, until 2, checked out the falls and pushed on for the trail head.

Sunset Falls, Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Despite an unexpected road closure, we made it to the trailhead at Green River Horse Camp to sleep.