I also enjoy road trips, the ability to see everything around me, to be able to pull off the road if or when I want to. I am able to see, hear and smell the things around me. I am also more in control of things and for me that’s a good feeling.

This trip started out as a talk in the car between Tobia and I about seeing lighthouses. The plan was to visit the real far Northern California lighthouses, see the coast, and end up in Mendocino where we already had a hotel booked for Saturday the 7th.

Some loose ends and this and that type stuff I’d like to talk about here:

• The Western most point in California is in fact Cape Mendocino as I had said. The reason I made a big deal about this was because I had done much research and it became somewhat of an obsession for me to find myself in CA’s Western most point along this trip. After all, it was a West Coast trip. That and also the fact that I expect guys who run a lighthouse to know these types of things, or at least not say incorrect things. A final note about this subject here- I felt bad dragging Tobia through the Lost Coast, a very desolate, depressing and incredibly tough place to walk or drive through. So for me to think that I led her there with all of our struggles, for no good reason, would have made me feel really bad. So the first thing I did when we returned home from the trip was to check the actual longitudinal coordinates for some of the Western most points in California. Cape Mendocino is, in fact, the Western most point, at -124.3520 degrees West. Point Arena (not even 2nd or 3rd Western most point) is merely at -123.7406. I know this is very nerdy, but I feel vindicated and rather smug too. I consider myself a sick and twisted man, but also a Northern California Coastal expert.
• Tobia and I have now driven a large chunk of Highway 1, roughly 475 miles to be more exact. As it is my favorite Highway, I expect to soon drive the final missing leg, the distance from roughly Morro Bay to San Juan Capistrano where Highway 1 ends at the Southern point. Of course, the Northern point is roughly at Leggett where we have already driven. Certain parts we covered during our Morro Bay trip in 2005. Other parts we covered due to our lighthouse tours over the last few months.
• Our next coastal trip will be to see the last 3 lighthouses on my list: Piedras Blancas (in Cambria), Port San Luis (San Luis Obispo) and Point Vicente (West of Long Beach). I will soon begin to plan that trip. I imagine this will happen either in late July (2007) or August.
• I over planned this trip a bit. Things like getting low tide times were completely unnecessary, because all we had to do was wait for that to happen naturally, as it did (without planning or my knowing it would), and we were ultimately able to easily cross the path to Battery Point Lighthouse when the water path cleared. All the planning in the world for that was reduced to seeing people cross at a distance, and we quickly rushed over and crossed the pathway as well. Other things like trying to figure out places to eat in a town were completely unnecessary as we just eyed decent looking restaurants, went over their menu, and decided if we wanted to come in and eat or not. All the extra work of this type of nature was not only indicative of my over planning nature, but completely gratuitous and a waste of time. One last point on this subject- on this trip, even though we made it to remote places, we were still on earth and in CA, and for the most part, important resources were always available. That means bathrooms, food, lodging and just areas to rest and take a load off. Here’s to winging it more next trip!!!
• On that note, some of the most incredible things were activities we ended up winging. Things like walking downtown Crescent City to absorb it, being fortunate enough that low tide was at that time and walking up to the lighthouse. At another instance we came across Point St. George Lighthouse at a distance due to just roaming around.
• I really loved that even though I was 400 miles away from home, it felt like I was thousands. Places like Shelter Cove, Crescent City, Mendocino and the ocean in general just makes me experience a different life and attitude altogether. Life is much slower, calmer and nature oriented. Tobia and I got to be in really good sync with the sun. We typically woke up anywhere between 7 and 7:30am on this trip with very little difficulty. Some towns did not have street lights and we were forced to turn in early and take advantage of sight seeing early in the morning. The ocean and its crashing waves, as well as rocks jutting out in the middle of the ocean create an incredible relaxing and luring scene for me, as I can sit and watch it for hours and let my mind run free. I do some of my best focused thinking too, as a result. The temperature never gets too hot around the coast, and it was a pleasure also to take advantage of this as the Bay Area hit 3 digits for temperature while we were gone.
• California has many faces. I could restrict California to just the North and it still has many faces. There were many vineyards, acres upon acres of redwood trees, rugged coastal terrain, Lost Coast Moutains and trees (straight lines that cut through at a steep angle), flat barren areas, and also miles and miles of grassy hills. This mixture makes for one incredibly beautiful state and a very interesting drive.
• Tobia and I bought 24 cases of grape juice. Yes, we are a bit crazy, but when we love something, we love it obsessively. We figured it is pretty tough to get this stuff and we got a massive discount for buying such bulk. I typically just enjoy drinking water, to a lesser extent tea, and even less than that orange juice. But now I have discovered grape juice and figure to enjoy it for the rest of my life.
• Regrets: sure, I always have some of those. I regret not researching the very difficult to reach and explore Cape Mendocino area. I suspect there are no roads that lead directly to Sugar Loaf Island or the location where Cape Mendocino Island used to rest (before it was moved to Shelter Cove), but could not confirm this one way or another. I have, since visiting there on Thursday the 5th, sent California Parks an email asking how to get there. I also regret that I was unable to push myself to the physical Westernmost point in CA, but rather had to stop about a half a mile shy due to completely intolerable conditions and Tobia’s difficult struggle. On that note, I regret trying to push her so hard to come with me all the way, as it was obviously extremely tough. I touched upon the final regret earlier. I had over planned where such extreme detail was not necessary (except probably in Cape Mendocino’s case), and in fact could have been limiting if we had stuck to what I put together. I’m glad we were able to split from it and still get to everything we wanted to see.

On the last day of our trip we woke up around 7:30am in Mendocino. We had seen signs across town that they were going to have a pancake breakfast from 8am – noon. From past experience (having done this in labor day of 2006), we knew this would be good. When we showed up at 8am, figuring things would just start rolling, elderly men were making pancakes, eggs and sausage, and already serving dozens of people before us.

I ultimately settled for 5 pancakes, an egg, a bunch of melon, pineapple and some orange juice. Yum! It was really good.

Passing by the town of Elk on highway 1 south. We had never driven in this area before.

Following breakfast we fueled one last time and hit the road on 1 South, determined to complete the last leg of our trip seeing this part of road we’d heard was beautiful. Beautiful it was. Instead of cutting Southeast at Highway 128 to Cloverdale, we continued down South to Elk on 1. Elk was followed by Point Arena. At Point Arena we pulled off- as we had originally planned in our trip- to go visit the lighthouse. After 2 miles of driving almost purely West, we reached the incredibly tall lighthouse structure.

Once at the site, we were given a trip up the stairs to the top of the lighthouse. Both our tour guide and the gentleman waiting for us at the top of the lighthouse insisted that Point Arena was the Western most point in California. I had read the entire last month that it was Cape Mendocino and let them know this. Still, they insisted where we were was the Western most point. I figured I would resolve this later at home when I could check actual coordinates of the locations.

We climbed about 10 flights of stairs to the top of Point Arena. Picture of staircase looking down.

View of Point Arena from the top of the lighthouse.

Point Arena Lighthouse the tallest lighthouse on the West Coast. But not the Western most point in California

Point Arena Lighthouse is perched on this rock.

Following Point Arena, we continued through Anchor Bay, Gualala, Sea Ranch and Fort Ross. Roughly at Fort Ross (even though advertised as Jenner), we pulled off at the Timber Cove Inn. We had read about this place in Tobia’s Via magazine, and the picture used to describe it is beautiful. Walking in like we owned the joint, Tobia and I trekked into the beautiful Inn and walked around, sneaking glances into rooms as they were being cleaned by the maids. We noticed a hallway door that led outside, and we followed it out to the rocks.

Once on the rocks (almost as if at home), we descended down almost to Ocean level, taking pictures, getting some good air, and appreciating being out of the car for a while. We were able to find out way back to the car without entering the Inn on our way out.

After venturing right through Timber Cove Inn we walked through to the back and scoped out the scenery.

Gleason Beach south of Fort Ross.

From Fort Ross we continued down to Jenner and Bodega Bay. It was around 12:30pm when we reached Bodega Bay, so pulled off to the side of Highway 1 and ate at a marvelous restaurant called Brisas Del Mar (see breezes). For me that meal was the most delicious in our entire trip (and we had some good food throughout) and the service was phenomenal.

The 24 bottle of white and red grape juice we bought.

With our stomachs full and content, we continued through Highway 1 across the Point Reyes National Seashore area. We started cruising more Southeasterly and eventually met up with Highway 101 South at Petaluma. Reality kind of hit us there as many vacationers were returning home too and the honking, passing up of other cars and impatience returned. Most of all, it was really hot again.
We followed 101 through SF, passing the Golden Gate Bridge, driving slowly through the City to get through to speedy 280. At the junction with 380 we crossed over to 101 where we pulled off into Foster City, realizing reality was back and we needed groceries for the week. We picked up food at the Whole Foods salad bar for dinner and drove home. We returned home at 4:30pm to some chores but content with the trip and being back. Our dinner consisted of our salad bars and a bottle of the Gewurtraminer white grape juice we bought in Philo the previous day. We toasted to a most incredible road trip and relaxing vacation.

Early morning view out of our Shelter Cove room.

Early morning view of King’s Range to the north.

We proceeded downstairs for breakfast at a small coffee shop that was part of our inn. Breakfast was good, quick and simple. Before heading out of Shelter Cove, we jotted down a few lots of land as they had great location and likely pretty cheap. I don’t figure we’ll ever even build a vacation home in Shelter Cove due to its remoteness, not quite as spectacular a view as say Mendocino or Albion, and its being totally disconnected from the real world. Nonetheless, I figured it would be interesting to figure out just how much good coastal real estate up there might cost.

Me driving through the Chandelier Tree.

Standing just outside the Drive Thru Tree.

After spending about 40 minutes on the winding Shelter Cove Road, being passed up by about half a dozen speeding trucks, and curving all over the place, we made it into Garberville. Finally reaching “civilization”, we fueled the car and geared up for the next stretch of road- Leggett. Even though Leggett didn’t qualify as a coastal trip, I figured since we were already so close to the Drive Thru Tree Park, we should stop there. The Tree was seriously impressive. It was 6 feet, 9 inches in depth and 6 feet in height. Tobia took some great pictures of me driving through the tree, as well as just pictures of me standing inside the tree. A nice lady volunteered to take some good pictures of us inside the tree.

Just south of where Highway 1 hits the Coast on the north end.

Just north of Fort Bragg.

Following this quick stop, it was time to hit the road towards our favorite place in the world, and next destination- Mendocino! We twisted and turned through route 271 leaving Leggett and heading to the coast. At some point along the trip (no signs) the route became highway 1. Once we hit the coast at the north end of highway 1 at Westport (roughly) the view was, as expected, spectacular. We continued down highway 1 for probably over an hour and a half, even though it wasn’t supposed to take that long. We stopped very many times just to get out and observe the unbelievable ocean views from outside the car. I have discovered that I enjoy public, outdoor, near the coast urination. I can’t quite explain it, but the whole experience just seems so natural to me. The other thing is that when I drive highway 1 I can’t keep my eyes on the road, but rather on the ocean, so for that reason it was a good idea to keep pulling over every so often. It also didn’t hurt that pulling over helped Tobia deal with some of the nausea she tends to experience with my wacky driving near the already difficult-to-traverse coastal highway.

We reached Mendocino just before noon, which meant lunchtime. We were both starving following an early lunch and long drive (we had left Shelter Cove about 4 hours earlier). Lunch was at Moose Café, ever delicious, with excellent service. After lunch, we were determined to finally trek out to Philo, 45 minutes to the southeast, off route 128, to get our favorite grape juice in the world. It was located at Navarro vineyards. We had tried the (white grape) Gewurtzraminer juice on our last visit to Mendocino in April and both totally loved it. There was also the (red grape) Pinot Noir juice that was excellent. Figuring you can barely find this excellent drink anywhere (or at least not at a reasonable price), we would buy some bottles. Initially we planned on a few, that grew to 10, a dozen, and even 20 at some point. When we reached the vineyards we bought two cases, for a total of 24 bottles: 17 white and 7 red. I’m sure we’ll only drink it for special occasions and with friends, and I can’t wait to have some.

Vineyard where we bought 24 bottle of divine grape juice.

We returned to Mendocino just before 3pm with 24 cases of grape juice. After loading up our room with our laptops and divine nectar drinks we headed to our favorite walking area- the Mendocino Headlands Park. We made our usual journey across it, from North to South, seeing beautiful waves (of all colors: blue, teal and green) crash against wild rocks. Around the walking trail were weeds and plants of respectable height, probably about 3 feet, once in a while getting in our way. After about 35 minutes of walking, we reached our favorite spot, a big rock (the source of many of our Mendocino pictures) that’s so close to the shore, but completely surrounded by water, so we call it an island. We parked our rear ends there and watched wild waves crash against it and splash us from time to time. We must have spent close to 2 hours there, relaxing, passing the time.

We took rest onlooking our favorite Island. We sat there for close to 2 hours.

Still relaxing on the rocks looking south.

At 6pm we headed to Café Beaujolais for dinner. It was great, and was followed by some great ice cream next door. Exhausted, we followed the ordeal by walking back to our inn and winding down the rest of the long day. I think fatigue caught up with us after being out on the road, coast and walking so much the previous days.

We had dinner one evening and breakfast the following morning at this place.

Heading South on 101 having just left Crescent City. Beautiful redwoods dominated the drive and the angle of the sun penetrating in was marvelous.

We started the day out in Crescent City, waking up at 7:30am. We decided we liked yesterday’s bakery and wanted to have breakfast there. After a good, big breakfast, we hit the road in search of Trinidad Head lighthouse. After a quick hour long drive, we pulled into the small and most charming Trinidad 60 miles south. There are two lighthouses in Trinidad: a memorial lighthouse, located in the center of the town, and another of Trinidad Head, a huge rock (300 feet high) facing the ocean. The memorial lighthouse was immediately visible and pretty nice. There were steps below it leading down to the ocean. We took the steps down and enjoyed watching seals on nearby rocks and just appreciating the scene.

After a short while it was time to trek up the big Trinidad Head rock to see the original lighthouse. After following an uphill path for about 30 minutes, we reached a point from which the lighthouse was visible. The lighthouse has been off limits for years by the CA coast guard. Not sure why. I had to climb a very unstable platform (I highly discourage doing this) and had Tobia hold my feet down as I tried to get more quality shots than just the standard ones you can get from the platform.

Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse. Immediately visible as we drove into Trinidad.

View of Trinidad Bay.

Trinidad Bay from ocean level. Some seals on the rock and 1 swimming.

I had to stand on a weird, unstable platform to get as good a shot of this as possible. Tobia held my legs down I was shaking so badly. Worth the photo.

It was pretty hot and we were a bit winded following the tough climb to Trinidad Head rock.

After our descent from the rock, it was time to head to Shelter Cove. The drive to Garberville (the only town with a road to Shelter Cove) was very quick and again full of redwoods. We ate at a fantastic tree huggery restaurant called Mateel’s. I had a baked tofu sandwich, and Tobia had a chicken quesadilla. We both remarked how fresh, delicious and wholesome the food was. Tobia’s dish came with some fabulous organic flax seed chips that we couldn’t stop pigging out on. I know this all sounds crazy, we couldn’t even grasp how good the food was.

This was where I had the incredibly good Tofu Sandwich in Garberville. Tobia’s dish came with really good organic flax seed chips.

Following this delicious adventure in Garberville, we finally headed off to Shelter Cove. The path to Shelter Cove consists of a long, twisty, climbing and descending road (I had to slip into 1st and 2nd gears so many times just to have enough power to get through), and it was very difficult to pass. Not that I drove fast enough to pass anyone, but many 4×4s simply smoked me along the drive.

We finally descended into Shelter Cove around 3pm to a gorgeous partial view of the airstrip and the ocean. We checked into the hotel where the inn lady told us there wasn’t much to do in town. Kinda surprising, I’ve never had such poor tourist recommendations. Still, we decided to take a walk around Shelter Cove, as I had mapped out distances of about 1.5 – 2 miles across the little cove. We ventured through the lower pacific drive street, where we were able to descend to the headlands and see crashing waves just a few feet away. Kings Range and the Lost Coast were visible both in the North and South directions in Shelter Cove, and they were simply magnificent. It was also very warm in the Cove, the ocean hardly cooling down this area. Right at the beginning of our walk, we saw a small plane take off from the Cove too, which was quite a cool viewing experience.

Shelter Cove- to the North is King’s Range. Right in front of us (no more than 100 feet) was this beautiful view from our room balcony.	Looking south from our balcony.	More of King’s Range to the north.
Rugged rocks, strong waves, I loved the scenery.	Planes at rest in Shelter Cove airstrip. About 10 minutes after this picture on of them left the Cove.	View of King’s Range to the south. It’s really quite an abnormality that Shelter Cove formed right in the middle of King’s Range as it’s terrain is so different.

We continued our walk, noticing dozens of empty land lots for sale. The view is spectacular at Shelter Cove, and I can see that despite its remoteness, people would be lured to this place. I got the sense that Mendocino (though more beautiful) seems like a pampered, too close to real life type place as compared to Shelter Cove. Phones do not work here, the internet exists with very weak on and off signals at a few locations, and they look to the small town of Garberville as “the city”.

Cape Mendocino Lighthouse relocated to Shelter Cove. It has been remodeled and too out of its element in my opinion. It doesn’t have the rugged look it used to have.

(Picture from lighthousefriends.com) This is what the lighthouse looked like back at Cape Mendocino at the Western most point in California.

Around midway through our walk, we saw the old Cape Mendocino lighthouse, migrated here from the Cape itself and restored. It now resides on the south side of the Cove in Mal Coombs Park, an ordinary lighthouse, clearly not in its true home and definitely out of place. Following the lighthouse we descended to a black sand beach, at the Southern corner of which we saw the day’s fishing boats returning full of fish, only to be lugged up a 500 foot or so semi-paved road by a badass tractor up to the Cove. On our way back from the black sands, I noticed a shoe in the water. Figuring it for hopelessly gone, we walked away. As we went up the steps back to the lighthouse, the shoe appeared close enough, and after a few acrobatic skips between rocks to avoid waves, I was able to snag the shoe out of the water and onto land. I was quite pleased with myself, though I figure it was ultimately for nothing.

This is the tractor that was pulling the day’s shipping boats up to the cove from the water.

Walking on upper pacific drive, looking down at the airstrip.

I proudly display the shoe I rescued out of Lost Coast waters.

On our trip back, we walked on upper pacific drive street. We got good looks at the airstrip and also at most of the golf course holes (9 hole golf course in Shelter Cove). We returned to the inn, had some pizza for dinner and I stepped out to our most incredible balcony to look out at the ocean 100 feet away, and capture the day’s events.

Me sitting down to capture the day’s events while appreciating the gorgeous view from our room prior to sunset.

View from our room’s balcony around sunset.

Another beautiful view.

Just after sundown.

We woke up around 7:30am in Santa Rosa. After a breakfast consisting of food we brought from home and goods available at the inn, we hit the road shortly after 8. We drove for hours through acres and acres of Redwoods up Highway 101 North. Following nearly 3.5 hours of scenic drive through Ukiah, Willits, Leggett, Garberville, and other smaller towns, we arrived at Ferndale around noon time. Ferndale was a charming little town, the site where a large part of the movie “The Majestic” was filmed. It was a Victorian town, nice enough to visit once.

Following a fairly good lunch, Tobia and I set to make our trip out to Cape Mendocino, the Western most point in California. After taking 45 minutes to drive the 17 or so mile Mattole Road drive- full of curves, horrible rough road, and tight climbs and descents- we finally saw a weird, really shallow ocean, with black sand. There was no way to turn off to Sugar Loaf Island, also the location of the former Cape Mendocino Lighthouse (now in Shelter Cove), as well as the Western most point in the state. Instead, we drove up to Mattole bridge, just past the private property, and took a barely visible (and scary) path down to the black sand beach. Amidst horrible conditions of roughly 25 mph winds in our faces, and sand grains chopping us up, we started trekking towards this Western most point and Sugar Loaf Island. Roughly half a mile away, it became nearly impossible to continue, with Tobia out of breath, unable to lift her weight out of the wet sands, and thinking she was about to have a heart attack. I couldn’t leave her behind, so we took some pictures in the fog, and turned around. To be fair, though, I was struggling horrendously myself, figuring I’d make a quick run out there while keeping an eye on Tobia and then come back after setting foot on the Western most point. Tobia was a great sport, supporting my craziness and pushing herself probably harder than I should have let her.

Our first view of the Lost Coast on drive.	First glimpse of Sugar Loaf Rock.	The sky, the sand and the water colors jumped out immediately as weird to me. The water depth was unnaturally shallow.	It was a tough walk on the Black Sands Beach. There were lots of bones of dead animals and other washed up things that didn’t stand a chance.
This was as close as I was able to get to the rock and the Western most point. I ran to get to this point, leaving Tobia behind, but within distance to keep an eye on her. The wind was blowing against me really hard and the sand too soft to make really good strides through.	Winds so strong I couldn’t keep the hood portion of my sweat shirt down. On top of that the sand was hitting me from behind really hard. It was unbearably difficult walk given these conditions.	Again, strange colors and rocks jutting out randomly.	I’m not sure I want to know how this happened.

I have to say that though extremely beautiful, it was the most isolated and desolate place I have ever seen in my life. Colors were just unnatural in terms of sand, water, and sky. It felt like the kind of place where you can die and no one would ever know. In fact, we saw 3 dead birds and a big fish skeleton on our route.

Ultimately, I was pretty disappointed when we got back to the car, not having exactly set foot where I wanted, but got close enough. I had done plenty of research, and road maps (as well as aerial ones) indicated that there was a road that splits away from the main one and that would lead us to the old location of Cape Mendocino Lighthouse. It would also enable us to stand at a high elevation and get some good photos of Sugar Loaf Island. Despite lingering on the road, coming to a complete stop on both directions, we could not find this mystery road, as everything had become private property. There was not even a hint of road. I ultimately sent CA parks an email asking WTF happened.

With a sense of total fatigue and pain in our bodies following the tough trek, we hopped in our car and headed to Crescent City. The drive up to Crescent City was gorgeous on 101 North. There were so many and so beautifully green redwood trees along our path. We passed Eureka (not impressive at all actually), Arcata, Trinidad and Klamath, just to name some of the bigger or more noticeable locations. We reached Crescent City around 5:30pm after a 2 hour drive.
We settled into the hotel and went to grab some dinner. Following dinner we ventured around the town, eventually walking to the lighthouse we intended to see- Battery Point Lighthouse. This lighthouse can only be reached at low tide, when the water level is low enough to cross an otherwise water covered path. As it wasn’t low tide, we went for a walk along a pier to get some nice photos of the lighthouse. The lighthouse is perched on a big rock, looking remote and beautiful high up there. On our way back from the pier, we realized the tide was low and were able to cross the pathway and made it up to the lighthouse. Beautiful place.

View of Crescent City Bay.	Battery Point Lighthouse can only be reached at low tide. The path to it is not visible yet.	Battery Point Lighthouse from the stone boardwalk we were on.
We were able to cross the path to the island and get a close up of Battery Point.	A self portrait just past the rock where Battery Point is perched.	This is what the path looked like (at low tide) to cross to Battery Point.

Following Battery Point Lighthouse, I had recalled nearby another location I wanted to see: Saint George Reef Lighthouse. This weird lighthouse was built on top of a concrete cylinder structure, on top of a small island, 8 miles west of Saint George Point, just a few miles north of Crescent City. Visibility was fairly poor, but we were able to see the lighthouse’s outline through the haze. Unfortunately the only way to reach it is by helicopter and those weren’t available, not to mention not a fun way to reach a lighthouse. We took some faint pictures of the remote lighthouse and finally headed back to the inn, around 8:30pm, to rest after an extremely long day.

Point St. George Lighthouse can be seen faintly here. I wish the visibility was better.

On the way back from Point St. George, great scenery and Battery Point Lighthouse.

A beautiful mural in downtown Crescent City depicting Point St. George Lighthouse. The lighthouse is built on top of a cylindrical concrete structure. Winds and waves get really strong (and high) out there.

For quite a few weekends now we’ve been active, going on trips to see the coast and lighthouses along it. On Saturday (June 23rd) we were driving up on Highway 1, just north of Monterey, when Tobia asked me how many more lighthouses I wanted to see. Earlier that day we went to the Santa Cruz lighthouse, our 8th in the series of fifteen I have been wanting to see. With 7 more remote lighthouses to go we realized the remaining ones were no longer day trip type adventures.

As our minds started churning, we realized that an upcoming 4th of July vacation would give us 4 days of roaming California’s far north coast. A few hours later at home, I started grinding out so many different combinations of trip options.

After 8 excited days of planning and mind changes, I settled on 4 lighthouses in 4 days. Battery Point lighthouse in Crescent City, Trinidad Head lighthouse in Trinidad, Cape Mendocino lighthouse (relocated) in Shelter Cove and Point Arena in… well, Point Arena. Included in the trip were also plans to see Cape Mendocino- the Western most point in California and also where beautiful Sugar Loaf Rock/Island can be seen- as well as the famous Drive Thru Tree in Leggett.

As the days neared, I could hardly contain myself and couldn’t stop thinking about the trip. Even though we didn’t plan to leave until Thursday the 5th at 5am, we changed our minds again, and decided to get an early start on Wednesday the 4th. We figured by conquering part of the drive we would have more time to either sleep or spend at the sites. That and we couldn’t sit still at home any longer in anticipation of this trip.

We booked a hotel in the North part of Santa Rosa. On the trip up to Santa Rosa we ate at the fabulous Spinnaker restaurant in Sausalito. We followed this with a trip along the town and some ice cream. We pulled into our Santa Rosa hotel in the evening.

We chose to stay in a simple, cheap hotel over other nicer looking (and more expensive) hotels for the very important reason that it was the only that had free WiFi. Of course, in this getaway to the near corners of the earth, we were unable to disconnect ourselves from our laptops and internet… we’re messed up. I wanted my laptop so I can, for the first time in my life, keep a running blog/journal of a trip I consider most exciting.

The hotel was nice, simple and clean. Everything was going well until Tobia discovered that her laptop would not boot, despite different attempts to bring it to life. Her face said it all- this trip ain’t worth shit without a functioning laptop. I was sad for her, but short of offering her my laptop didn’t think I could do much. She must have spent an hour or two on my laptop reading up on how to resuscitate her hunk of junk. Eventually she got her laptop up and our trip was saved!