Northern California

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A wild mushroom in Humbolt county - The shaka is to show you the scale
Clam Beach - we were trying to capture the sand dunes on this beach
Trinidad lighthouse looking down toward clam beach
The pacific coast in Humbolt county
More coast - it really is hard to capture how nice it is
Moonstone beach with bouldering problem right on the beach
Farmers market get together in Arcata
The band at the Farmers market
The beautiful Redwoods
The GIANT Redwoods
This is along the drive throught the Redwood National Park - high on the cliff with grand pacific views
More scenery along Redwood National Park
This was our last camping spot in California - right on the coast in Crescent City - prolly the best free camping spot we could find
The coast along North crescent city
Sunset in Crescent City
Driving up through Northern California on a Thursday, the 25th of July, we passed some nice towns, including the town of Nice, which had the Nice RV Park and Nice Liquor Store. We didn't stop there, though. Maybe it was too nice for us. We made camp in a hard to spot roadside pullout along the 101. Steve cooked up his famous Kapali burgers as we cooled out to the sounds of Frank Sinatra and the like on the XM radio waves. We had ourselves some Parrot Bay and Cokes and a mighty fine evening. It was good to be on the road again. We were just in Sacramento again for a week to make a few minor adjustments to the van, and the weather was getting to be hot again. Now were on the coast and it's nice and moderate - can't beat the coast on a hot summer day.

The next morning we headed out for the land of the Dreads, Humboldt County. Spent the afternoon at a place called Clam Beach, where this barefoot hippie chick wanted to trade my Reef slippers for a "nugget"..........and I don't remember what we did after that........Just kidding, I still have my slippers.

At the recommendation of our friend Dave(the one with the killer banana pancakes. We still make them all the time), we spent the night at Moonstone Beach, which offers a little something for both the climbing and the surf enthusiast. We pondered taking the boards out there but quickly retreated after feeling the water temperature. It was a mushy longboard spot anyway and after Jalama we were a little spoiled. The truth of the matter was that the water was cold - freakin cold! and most people i saw going out had hoods and gloves on. I had neither and i didn't want to go buy one. I think this is when i kinda gave up on surfing the rest of the way up the coast. I figure i'll check as much spots as i can, but unless it's epic i won't go out. I just figured i would surf again when i get to the great lakes or the East coast.

The next morning was a Saturday and a Farmers' Market in downtown Arcata brought out all the Dreads. There were jugglers and ribbon twirlers and others just looking to get their organic groove on. Needless to say, everyone was very laid back.

The rest of the day was spent feeling small as we drove under the canopy of the great Redwoods. We came to a halt at our last stop in California, Crescent City. All was flat along the sandbars in Crescent Bay but we watched a beautiful sunset there and found it to be a quaint area, albeit a bit chilly. We had the best view in town as we went to sleep on a cliff overlooking the bay. Crescent City looks like a great place to surf when it has swell. Most of the beaches are in these wind protected cove, and one of the beaches wraps around so that the nasty north easterlys are actually off shore for that spots. There these tiny little peelers that would come in, and i even so saw some surfers giving a little surf check so i knew this place could get real good. I think Greg Knoll lives up here too. Anyway - Crescent city looked like a great place to come and check in the winter time when the big swells hit this place. As we awoke the next morning we noticed a funk in the air and realized it had been four days since our last shower. Uh oh. Something needed to be done quickly. We couldn't drive into Oregon in such a condition. Jedediah Smith State Park, along the 199, had the solution. Twenty minutes and $2 later we smelled like spring meadows and were on our way to Oregon.