After hours of gruelingly beautiful and winding coastline and forested mountain roads, we made it to Eureka, last outpost of Northern California.
We followed the Pacific Coast Highway to its northern end, looking forward to the wide freeways of the 101, only to find that up here, the 101 was another two-laned, curvy mountain road! But finally it straightened out, widened to four lanes, through river valleys of enormous redwoods (the Avenue of the Giants is here, but we lacked the energy for it), and we made a last gasp into town.
Eureka dates from the mid-1800s, making it about as old as San Francisco. It's full of old Victorian gems, and the Old Town is a walking tour of restaurants and tourist boutiques as you'd expect. We decided to be wimps and hang out in town, stay in a cheap motel, etc., especially since Humboldt County is a trove of microbrews. We dropped into the Lost Coast Brewery, which had more tasty varieties than I generally care to drink in an evening: Rasberry Wheat, Belgian White, Scottish Ale, India Pale Ale (called Indica, Humboldt County is also reknowned for its reefer), and Stout, plus a few more I can't remember. It put most brew pubs to shame, that's for certain.
Today, we're going to finally leave California, and not to get all teary-eyed patriotic (is state pride patriotic?) on the 3rd of July, but we live in an amazing state. While we haven't been taking a direct route, we've driven some 800 miles north from Venice, and we're still in the same damn state! And though we've pretty much hugged the coast, how many completely different coasts have we seen? Venice, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Mancester to Mendocino, and now Eureka. All different worlds.
Yeah, California rocks. Let's hoist the flag high and invade other states to prove how much better we are!
Miles: 1078
Posted by yozhik at July 3, 2003 08:52 AM