I rolled into Guerenville late evening.  I hit up a few inns before I found one that had a vacancy.  The old lady showed me the room, a large king size bed taking up the entire available space.  This would be just fine for me, I said.

The air was getting bitingly cold.  I cranked the small gas furnace up to the max and settled in for the night, sipping a bottle of Heineken and thinking about what I saw the day prior.  (See yesterday’s blog post).

Part of the reason that spurred me to take this trip was because after I sold my truck, I realized how much I missed the road trips.  I drove bazillions of miles in 2008, crisscrossing the country and taking a ton of photos.

And now in San Francisco, I was staying in my little 7 mile by 7 mile sandbox.  I wanted to be on the road again!

I badly miscalculated how far I’d go on US-1 though.  I only made it 60 miles north (as the crow flies) before night fell.  I knew from pictures and from what I’d read that US-1 was pretty twisty, but I had no idea HOW twisty.  30 miles a hour would be considered reckless in some sections…

So when night fell, I found myself close to Guerenville, and stopped in for a night’s say.  I woke up to gray skies and low fog.

After a long hot shower and some food from the store, I rolled on out of town under a gray canopy.  I wondered to myself if this would be on the order for the rest of the day…

While roaming along the banks of the Russian River, I noticed that the sands were all duck footprints.  No human footprints, except mine own.

Houses sat under the shelter of the pines.  I pulled my jacket tighter and stashed my gear in the car and headed on back to Highway 1.

And lo, behold!  Like Dorothy finding herself in full TECHNICOLOR in the Land of Oz after a violent cyclone ride, as soon as I hit the coast, a strong wind blew in from the ocean and pulled the sky wide open under the brilliant morning sun.

First stop of the day was the Salt Cove.  I pulled in the park to take a leak, then decided to explore the beach.  The incessant pounding of the surf in this cove had smoothed down the large stones in the beach, and turned driftwood into creepily organic tendrils that looked more like snakes than wood.

Lone cypress trees dot the cliffs edge, their shapes indicative of an entire lifetime spent in the face of the oceanic winds.  The wind today was especially powerful, forcing me to continually brace myself against it when taking photos.

About a mile before my turnoff on US-128 that would take me through Navarro Redwood Forest (and back to San Francisco), I drove past this small cliffside cemetery.  I stopped in for a small break and to sit amongst the dead, enjoying the same view, if only for a few moments that some of the cemetery residents have enjoyed for centuries.

Ten miles off Highway 1, I entered the dense canopy of the Navarro Redwood Forest.  I stopped for a little bit to explore.  The information I had read on the web the night before said that Navarro was basically a second-line redwood forest.  Much younger and smaller than the giants that once dominated the entire northern part of California.

But still, those trees were HUGE!  Trunks that stood over eight, ten feet in diameter and tops that towered out of sight, I walked around in awe.  If those were considered “small”, then I definitely had to head on up to see the ancient redwoods.  Maybe next month?

Even the cloves were super-sized.  Those cloves were easily the size of dollar coins.

After my time with the redwoods, it was time to head home.  I drove eastward to meet up with US-101, and raced home.  It seemed so strange to me that it would take me two days to drive only 120 miles north, and less than two hours to return home.

And the drive up north was so many times more rich and rewarding than the drive home.  Its kind of sad that we have become so accustomed to driving on those big interstate freeways that blur us past all those amazing views and sights that our country has to offer….