Driving Up the Coast of California

with Side Trips to Suffering and Bliss

By: Matt & Laurel Talley
 
Somehow my vacations always seem to turn out more exhausting than my workweek. Neither of my trips this year failed to disappoint in that respect. I spent a week climbing, boarding, shivering, and laughing at/with Ross this spring. I was so spent afterwards that I almost had to take sick time before returning to work. In July, Laurel and I decided to take a trip to Oregon. She planned the activities in Oregon and I planed the drive and attractions to visit along the way. Once again I shoehorned two weeks of road-trippin’, biking, romance, culinary delights, camping, climbing, and hiking into five days. Logistics are my gift. Some years that gift is like getting a Red-Ryder BB gun on Christmas morning and some years it is a fruitcake from Grandma…

We left Orange County a touch later (three hours) than we had planned on the Friday before the 4th of July. I would rather spend a weekend skipping through the fifth level of Hell, sporting a gold lamé g-string and a pink ballerina outfit than driving in Los Angeles during weekend holiday traffic – it was mind numbing and exhausting. On any other day it would have been a semi-unpleasant two and a half hour gauntlet of cell phone-wielding Asian teens and maniacs behind the wheel of $70,000 Mercedes’. Instead, we spent five hours in traffic, before finally breaking onto open road somewhere near Santa Clarita. The plan was to drop Laurel off at a buddy’s house in Oakland for a weekend of pedicures and shopping while I headed for Yosemite National Park to tackle a long classic climbing route with The Lord of Suffering: Mark Flood. It was late when I dropped Laurel off and it took me forever to get to the park – just that drive was an adventure in itself (If you’re interested, the tale of that climbing trip is here). I drove back to Laurel in Oakland forty-eight hours later, my body nearly broken. She was spending the evening with a friend’s parents. They took one look at me and offered up their shower and cooked me dinner. I needed both terribly and I was so grateful for their hospitality! There are worse things than being fresh and clean after wallowing in filth and enjoying a home cooked Chinese meal after two days of Clif Bars being one’s only means of sustenance.

Laurel and I had a breakfast of crepes with our friends the next morning and ran some errands in Berkeley and El Cerito, again getting on the road later than we had planned. Laurel says: It was my request to eat at Crepevine in Oakland. They have an amazing offering of both sweet and savory crepes. Matt had one filled with strawberries and Nutella spread, and mine had chicken, avocados, spinach, pesto and feta cheese. We also had to stop at the sporting good store for some supplies and at Trader Joes for camping food. We drove north along Highway 1 and into the Redwoods. We had an idea about where we would stay, but had no solid reservations. When traveling for pleasure or while hiking I prefer to let fate decide where I will sleep each night. That school of thought has led to so many unforgettable memories that wouldn’t have happened if I had planned the trip in advance. The first campground that we stopped at was full – holiday weekend and all – but the next, which was off the main road, had open spaces, and was situated next to a wide and sandy river bed, nestled within a grove of tall, ancient redwoods. It was also a perfect starting place for a bike ride that I wanted to do the next morning. I had toted my road-bike halfway across California to ride the entire length of the Avenue of the Giants and our campsite was just a few miles to the south of its start. We spent the night roasting yummy sausages on the grill, watching the fire, strolling along the riverbed by moonlight and cuddling in the back of the Subaru: a perfect road trip night.
 

Matt and Laurel at a cookie stop. The owner of the cookie store (no really, it was a cookie store!) not only took the picture, but gave us some great advice on where to stay and go in the redwoods. Strange travel suggestions are like dancing lessons from God...

A psycho-hillbilly school bus parked at the cookie stop. We both could walk underneath it. Just imagine showing up to school in this beast, or it showing up at your bus stop early one morning.

I was up early the next morning, pulling on my Spandex and taking my bike down from the carrier. I helped clean up camp and went over my route and our meeting point with Laurel before I took off. She was to meet me at the end of the “Avenue” about an hour and a half later… The wind was a little chilly when I started out and I thought about the long sleeve cycling jersey that I left back in the car, hoping that I would warm up as soon as I started cranking the peddles. I couldn’t help but to imagine that it was probably in a bag in the back of the car, lying warmly and snuggly next to a napping Laurel. Damn. The wind got even colder when I reached Highway 1, and I tried not to think about the temperature as the goose pimples on my arms and legs came out in force. There were other things to occupy my mind - like the log trucks that flew by me, one getting within a foot, the lack of a shoulder on the highway, the mileage inaccuracies of the cheap Redwoods map that we bought, and the active rock slide area that I rolled through… Fifteen miles from camp and six miles further than the map had stated it was, I entered the Avenue of the Giants. The wind was blocked and the heat of the decomposing forest biomass was held close to the ground by the trees. There were wild flowers and ferns all along the road. The air was sweet with their scent and the peppery smell of the redwoods themselves. I peddled through grove after grove of redwoods and I was amazed by both their size and with the realization that some of the giants that I rode by had been mature trees when Shakespeare wrote Othello. The ride was a beautiful one that I will never forget. There was some confusion about where the rally point was at the end of the ride (still not exactly sure how that happened…) and the mileage on one of the maps was WAY off, so instead of riding the twenty-one miles I had planned on, the day’s total mileage was just over thirty-six. Not a bad morning on the bike. Laurel says: I left camp at the appointed time and drove to and past the checkpoint. My mistake was taking the highway the entire time instead of turning onto the Avenue. I got to the destination much earlier than expected, and of course didn't see Matt along the way. Matt interjects: Always follow the cyclists' path! Matt was nowhere to be seen and the checkpoint turned out to be a crossroads. I wasn’t sure which bank of the highway he was supposed to be at so I kept on driving and eventually made it all the way to our campsite. I turned back around and drove up and down the road more than once before finally finding a very cold and tired Matt. As I drove back and forth I became increasingly more concerned (I’m an excellent worrywart) and was so glad to see him standing there in one piece.
 

Matt once again trying to get sponsored by Clif Bar, Inc.

Right before Matt's fateful ride where 21 miles became 36 and Laurel left him at a cold crossroad...
 
We spent the afternoon checking out the “Sights of the Redwoods,” like the drive-through tree, the living chimney tree, the Visitor’s Center and other such roadside attractions. Camp that night was one that had been suggested by Laurel’s father and by a local shop owner - cookie stop!!! Laurel says: We spent the afternoon walking along a creek and taking photographs of each other in a field of tall grass and wildflowers. Once twilight fell, Matt made a fire, I opened a bottle of cooler-chilled wine, and we cooked dinner together. Our meal was truly first rate for camping: spinach fettuccine pasta with pesto sauce and goat cheese, chicken grilled over the fire, and crusty Italian bread, all washed down with tasty wine straight from the bottle. Our campsite was on a rise and bordered by six huge trees. We couldn’t see the night sky because of the canopy, but I left the rainfly off and we watched the campfire burn to embers from the warmth of our sleeping bags.
 

One of two drive-through trees in the redwoods.

To get an idea of the size of the tree, Laurel posed within its opening.
 

Laurel framed inside the burned out stump of an age-old redwood near our campsite.

Hobbit village.
 
The Humboldt Grove of Redwoods is vast and there are hundreds of trails running through it. Laurel and I visited the world’s tallest known tree the next morning and then hiked on a couple of the area’s trails. At one point we came upon a fire-hollowed redwood that had finally succumbed to the wind and was blown down so recently that the air was filled with the smell of freshly cut wood and there were splinters, some five feet long, littering the ground for twenty yards around the tree. On the way back to our car we spotted a doe and fawn mule deer just a few feet off the trail. They stood their ground and watched us as we snapped their picture. They had no clue that they should be afraid of humans, as the deer there haven’t faced hunting pressure in a hundred years.
 

A shot of the canopy of trees above our campsite.

Matt with arms spread wide at the tallest known tree in the world.
 
After the redwoods, our drive took us north through Eureka and into Crescent City, where we joined Highway 101 and drove along the Pacific coast for a few miles. The original plan would have taken us to Crater Lake, but it would have been a Griswold stop - getting out of the car, taking in the beauty of the water and trees for exactly three minutes, hopping back in the car for hours of driving, all just to say we had been there. Neither of us wanted that and decided to save the spot for a future adventure when we would have the time to appreciate the park for all that it is. Instead of seeing Crater Lake in such a mad-dash fashion we made a beeline for Eugene and the promise of hot showers and good food.
 

Matt poses in front of a heard of elk in somebody's yard on highway 101. Click on this image to see a larger picture. (Notice the roof.)

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at a roadside attraction south of Eureka, CA. Notice the kid sitting on Paul's shoe for an idea of the size.
 

Eugene, Oregon was beautiful while we were there visiting. It was the height of summer, the air was warm, there were wild flowers in the fields, and everything was green. I went on three long bike rides while we were there – one that took me out of town on a rural highway that led to a winery nestled in between green hills. As I stated above, Laurel planned our activities while in Eugene and the thing that she wanted to do the absolute most was to take me to the Oregon Country Fair. She has worked at the event for six years and the atmosphere and social happenings of the place draw her back again and again. To get to see and do everything that the Fair has to offer one apparently has to work there. We didn’t have the time to spend or I the inclination to work on vacation, so we just went for the day on a Friday. It was a semi-naked renaissance faire/hippie gathering/craft market/food fest. Weird does not even come close to describing the day as I experienced it.

We got there before the gates opened and stood in line for a little while. All seemed normal in a hippie-normal sort of way for the first half of the day. After lunch, as if it was the thing to do, tops came off - men and women. Some of those tops were covering breasts that should be forever banned from seeing the light of day or from being displayed at a public event… There was rainbow tie-dye, bare feet, fairy wings, and face and body paint as far as one could see.

 

Matt blending his smoothie at a green-energy booth, and a few shots of the various characters one might see on any given day at the fair.

 

The event is set up around a figure eight and if stretched out would be more than two miles long and we walked the whole thing with Laurel flittering here and there to see friends, sample food, and to look at and buy crafts. She loves the place and has roots there; I, on the other hand, saw it from an outsider’s point of view and came away with a different sensation than her. I loved seeing her in a place that she loves so much and I had a good time with her there. The food was fantastic and most all of the crafts were ingenious and very well made. However, for all the tie-dye, beards, love slogans, drum circles, and happy people I also saw an undercurrent of commercialism and consumerism. There was also a peeking of elitism, as “Fair Family” – the people who live and work there all week – are afforded discounts at stalls and booths and there are parts of the festival that are sectioned off and only for their use. I though it a strange phenomena for a gathering in the Oregon woods put on by former flower children and their children to have that small Orwellian stain.

Laurel says: It was sad for me that Matt didn’t enjoy the faire as much as I hoped he would. The Oregon Country Fair for me is one of the high points of my life. I have been going since my family moved to Oregon when I was nine, and started working there at 17. It’s hard to describe in words why I love Fair so much. I guess it’s just the closest thing to a perfect community as I have ever come across, and I would truly love to live there year round if I could. People are so helpful, playful and respectful. On every turn of the path there are bins set up for waste, including one for cigarette butts, others for food scraps (regular and vegan), as well as the usual recycling categories. The goal is to have a “waste free faire by 2010.” A few years ago everyone started using utensils made out of corn by-product (completely compostable) and this year all the booths used real metal silverware. There were receptacles for these as well, which would be collected, washed and reused. I love that no one would dare throw a cigarette butt on the ground there, among so many other things that seem so natural to me.

The fair is located on some acreage outside Veneta. As Matt said, it is built around a figure eight that winds through the woods and along the banks of the Long Tom River. Every year the faire grows a little bigger with new paths, meadows, and camping lots. The dirt paths are smooth like polished leather from all the foot traffic, and it is sublime to walk barefoot in the morning. Everywhere you look one can see boobies painted with butterfly wings, pregnant bellies painted with babies and glitter, and even an older gentleman covered in silver paint and wearing nothing but a loin cloth. Parades go on all throughout the day and anyone who wishes can jump in and tag along. The parades are always themed, with very creative costumes and a live marching band.

 

More fun people, costumes, and oddities on the path.
 

Perhaps the best part of Fair is the privilege of being there all week (day trippers come from 9 am to 7 pm Friday through Sunday.) It is too bad that not everyone is allowed this privilege and the topic is heavily debated by Fairgoers. There are those people who get to stay all week because they know someone who has a booth and is willing to give or sell them a pass. However, like me, the majority of the people work, and work very hard. It’s not always restful spending your vacation working, but it is definitely worth it. I worked for many years at the Community Village Restaurant (Holy Cow), a vegan booth selling Indian and Thai curried tofu, stir-fried veggies and rice. Although I usually wanted to be out on the paths with my friends enjoying the Fair, I always had such a good time working. Everyone who comes to buy food chats with you and is so happy to be there. People will come play us music, tell us jokes, try to barter with us and just generally hang out. There are two ways to work at the Fair– the conventional way or the Karma path. Conventional means you pay for your camping pass and earn minimum wage for the hours you work. The karma path was designed to give you more of a Fair experience. The booth owner pays for your pass, feeds you once a day, gives you a shower pass at the Ritz Sauna (more on that later) each day and gives you Fair vouchers for every hour you work. The vouchers are redeemable at any booth for necessities - food, drinks or showers. The purpose of this is to take money completely out of the equation. There is a real sense of bartering your time for something you need, and a hot meal tastes so very good after you worked for it. Matt mentioned the Fair Family specials – these are often much smaller portions for a voucher or two, when a regular meal might cost a little more than that.
 

Laurel at her favorite artist's booth (Mark Henson), Matt standing with some Fair buddies, and Laurel modeling her new devil horns.
 

The Ritz Sauna (www.ritzsauna.com) is an experience all on its own. Located at the very top of the figure eight, it’s a standing structure made all of polished wood and decorated with Native American art and totem poles. Inside the Ritz is a communal shower, private shower stalls, a few luxury bath tubs, two enclosed saunas and a beautiful fire pit surrounded by benches and a baby grand piano. There is no roof except on the saunas, and the rest of the place is open to the beautiful sky. There is something so delicious about taking a warm shower under the stars, especially when you are dirty from living in the woods for a while. The larger of the two saunas has tiered wooden steps and holds 30 or more people, all naked, singing, chanting and telling jokes.

Nighttime at the Fair is very special as well. The paths are dark but most booths are still open and lit by candles, paper lanterns and other lighting. This is a time for extreme merriment. More than once I have watched as a pair of seventy year old hippies giggled to themselves, apparently high on acid. Plenty of people dress up in wacky costumes, including covering themselves in broken-up glow stick necklaces, to become walking glow stick-people. It would take a novel to tell you everything I love about the faire, but I will end here for now. I hope someday Matt has the opportunity to experience all the joy the faire has to offer. And anyone reading this, if you are interested, the Oregon Country Fair takes place every summer, the second weekend of July. It is an event truly not to be missed.

On Saturday, Laurel and I met up with our friends Raye and Kyle for an adventure! The weather had been warm and it was decided that we needed to swim a little bit. We packed a picnic and drove to a swimming hole at Fall Creek. The water was crystal clear and we had the rocky beach to ourselves. Kyle and I were debating jumping off a cliff into the water – trying to gauge depth, temperature, etc… when I decided to just leap – I MAY have planned poorly… I left my flip-flops on the rock above and forgot to take my $350 prescription sunglasses off before jumping. The glasses immediately sunk to the rocky, muddy bottom and I had to hobble up the cliff, almost stepping on a filthy snake (yes, I screamed like a little bitch…), and down a rocky road to a campsite to borrow a little girl’s swim goggles so that I could retrieve my glasses. You can’t imagine how sexy I looked all pale and hairy; sporting bright orange little kid goggles that cut off the circulation to the top of my head. I was a babe magnet!! In the end Kyle found my glasses (thanks Kyle!) and we had to move spots because our secluded bend in the river soon filled with big women, skinny men, little kids, and dogs. Because of Kyle’s kindness in retrieving my glasses and because I didn’t want Raye to stab me I refrained from making fun of their dog, Billy, who came along. Billy is the only adult Labrador retriever that I have ever seen that is afraid of water. He was “assisted” into the creek at one point and he was absolutely not pleased – giving the perpetrator of the misdeed the cold shoulder for the entire afternoon. After walking down stream a fair distance we found a great spot where we weren’t bothered at for the rest of the day. There is nothing like getting to swim in a crystal clear river in the middle of the woods. It feels so right and so free.

 

Matt looking cool wearing a 5-year-old girl's swim goggles. You just wish you could pull off this look...

Billy - A beautiful puppy, but the only lab in the whole world that doesn't like to swim.

 

A panoramic shot of the swimming area. Click on the image for a larger view. Notice the waterfall in the background. An amazing swimming hole.
 
I spent the rest of my time in Eugene hanging out with Laurel’s buddies, checking out a bike shop or three, eating good food, laughing, and hanging out with her family. Laurel was staying there to take care of some things at home and visit with family and friends a little longer. I had run out of vacation and had to return to work. I got a head start on the eighteen-hour drive home on Saturday night, leaving before midnight. I drove for three hours and pulled into the side lot of an Indian Casino just before the California border and slept for a few hours. The next morning I loaded up with truck-stop coffee, Gatorade, and beef jerky before hitting the road. I took I-5 for almost the entire way and while not nearly as scenic as the 1 and 101, I made really good time and got to see Mt. Shasta with snow still covering its top and flanks. Just before LA, traffic slowed to a crawl because of a brush fire that was burning on both sides of the interstate as it went through a narrow, hilly pass. I could see the smoke for miles and there were two helicopters dumping water on the blaze. I had never seen a brush fire that closely and had no idea that the grass could burn so hot, so fast or support such walls of flame.
 
The roadside fire Matt encountered on his way home to Orange County.
 
I made it home around 6:00 that night, had take-out for dinner, called Laurel, and passed out. Once again my vacation was exponentially harder that anything that I’ve done at work in years. I had a fantastic time over all, I got to spend quality time with the woman I love, see and climb with old friends, experience new smells and sights, and I was lucky enough to take a long delayed vacation along the length of the state that I have called home for the last three years.
 

Matt standing at the back of our bad roadtrippin' chariot. Room for three, great gas mileage, holds a ton of gear, and has a DVD player in the dash. If you look at the tailgate, you will notice a green ribbon magnet. Click image for a closer look. This magnet comes with Matt and Laurel on all our adventure roadtrips (kein kinder/sans les enfants), regardless of the vehicle.