6 posts from 2008

Christmas Day is a pretty good day to travel in most regards, other than the fact that there isn't much open. Our goal today was to make it from Astoria, OR all the way around the Olympic Peninsula to Port Townsend, WA, which our longest day aside from working our way from Boise out to the coast.

The Astoria Bridge was festooned with snow, so we definitely got our white Christmas. As we headed north we definitely encountered our fair share of crappy conditions. We encountered a semi tractor-trailer that had lost traction on an icy hill blown through a T-intersection and dove right off into an icy marsh, luckily it wasn't deep, but I bet it was a bear getting him out.

The drive around the Olympic Peninsula was quite beautiful, we did have to fight some poor road conditions, but we did managed to get to Port Townsend in the daylight, and had a wonderful Christmas dinner at a restaurant called Sirens. If you are ever in Port Townsend and want a good dinner, that is the place to go.

After spending our first night in a yurt at Harris Beach State Park, we began to head north again, but not before heading down to check out Harris Beach, which we couldn't see, since we got into Brookings after dark. From Harris Beach we headed on North along the coast and enjoyed the variety of OR coast scenery. We also checked out the Sea Lion Caves, which, while touristy was a good stop. From there we worked our way up to Beverly Beach (just north of Newport) for our Second night in a yurt.

We spent the night near Newport, at Beverly Beach State Park in a Yurt again, which was very comfortable, despite the rain and the relatively cold weather for the area. We had dinner at a place call Szabos, which had an outstanding dinner special; a $9.95 16 Oz ribeye dinner which was great.

So the next morning we were at Les Schwab at 8:00 AM on the money, and have the tire fixed, and were out the door in 17 minutes flat, plus it was FREE! Thanks you Les Schwab.

So from here we decided to head south and hit the "Avenue of the Giants" which parallels HWY 101 for quite some ways, winding its way through old growth redwood forest. This drive proved to be very scenic, but not very photogenic. After running through the redwoods, we ended up down in Redway, CA. I had planned to head from Redway back out to the coast via some windy 2-lane through Honeydew and Petrolia, and then on to Mattole Beach, then back up to Ferndale, and then boogie to Brookings where we had a yurt reserved for the night at Harris Beach State Park.

Instead of heading straight to Honeydew, we decided to head down to Shelter Cove first, which proved to be a very windy and bumpy drive, but well worth it for the phenomenal beauty of the Shelter Cove area.

On the way back out from Shelter Cove, we decided to take a Detour on a road called King Ridge Road, a single lane gravel road which would hook us up with the road to Honeydew after about 20 miles. It turned out to be a GREAT side trip.

Once we got back the pavement, we wound our into the heart of the King Range, to Honeydew, Petrolia, and on to Mattole Beach. There is some real pictureqsue scenery here, and I didn't know there were areas of CA that could be so untouched.

The drive from Mattole beach out to Ferndale (like the drive the whole day) was very windy, very bumpy, and very steep. But it was tons of fun, although I wouldn't want to do it if the conditions got slick and nasty, it would be impossible.

From Ferndale we hot-footed it north to Brookings where we spent the night in a Yurt at Harris Beach State Park. These proved to be comfy accomodations, in a beautiful area.

Today's plan was to head south towards Redwood National Park. Our first stop was down in Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, near Crescent City, CA. We took a fun little one lane dirt road through a cool stretch of the redwood forest.

After we finished our drive through Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, we headed south, planning to drive the down the Avenue of the Redwoods before we found a place to stay for the night. Well, when we stopped to pick up the info pamphlet for the Avenue of the Redwoods drive, I noticed this hissing sound coming from the rear end of the car. I tracked the sound down the driver's side rear tire, and low and behold it was leaking air. So we had to make a U-Turn and head back to Fortuna, where awaited the opening of Les Schwab in the morning.

This year my mom and I decided it would be better if she came to Boise for Christmas, as opposed to me coming home to FL. So she booked a ticket, and I started thinking, "What the heck are we going to do in Boise for two and a half weeks?" So I decided we should take a road trip.

This spring I drove from Boise, to Las Vegas, then on to Anza Borrego, San Diego, and then all the way back up the CA coast. So it only made sense that my mom and I should finish the job, and do the drive from Nor. CA up the Oregon and Washington Coast, on to Vancouver Island, back down the BC mainland and on back to Boise.

So we started the trip on Saturday, December 20th, planning to drive from Boise, ID to Grants Pass, OR. I knew it was going to be cold, snowy and icy, and we were hoping to dodge a break in the succession of winter storms that seem to be hammering the coast this year. The trip was pretty good until we started to get near Bend, OR, and my car started to do the "ghost walk" that is common on the 2005+ models.

I wasn't convince that this was the ghost walking problem, so I decided to pull over, and make sure my lugs were torqued properly, my tire pressure was right, and there wasn't anything going on with the suspension.

So, I just dealt with the ghost walking, and we made our way though Bend, OR, and on south towards Crater Lake. We got of US 97, which had pretty nasty ice, and got onto the packed snow of a road that made a big loop around Crater Lake National Park. The scenery going around Crater Lake NP was great, and the Subie was completely in its element, we were able to cruise at 50-60 MPH on the packed snow, it was great driving. We finally made it out of the snow, and down into the wet country, and ended up spending the night down in Rogue River.