South Down the Coast!

After leaving Portland, we headed south down the coast on Hwy 1/101. We drove past many roadside fruit/produce stands. Finally we had to stop! We picked out fresh Rainer cherries and blueberries and pretty much ate them all within a couple hours :) It was the first fresh fruit we'd had since leaving on our trip! Hwy 1/101 follows the coastline through many, many coastal towns. Some of which were very touristy, some of which weren’t. After passing through most of these towns over the course of several hours, the highway emerges right along the coast and makes for some very scenic views. We pulled over to check out the more dramatic coastline and happened to stop exactly where a pod of whales were hanging out off shore!! How neat is that!! They looked like big dark blobs under the water and would surface every once in a while for air, spraying water up. It looked just like it does on National Geographic.

Whales off the shore!

Southern Oregon coast

We decided to camp for the night in Brookings, OR which had a dumpy beachfront RV park/campground. It was neat to be right on the beachfront, but I was glad we were only there for the night. It wasn’t a particularly clean or scenic place. We first looked into camping at the state park up the road, which was much prettier, but they were full. We made the best of the place we were at and walked on the beach and did some exploring before watching the sunset.

Next morning we continued our drive south with the end destination of San Francisco! We drove on the Redwood Forest Parkway and stopped in the forest to check out the big trees! So much greenery!! The Redwoods were super tall and skinny. The Giant Sequoias weren’t as tall but were huge around their trunks! With all of the humid air coming in off the coast, I could see why these trees thrive! I had the song from grade school “This Land is Your Land” stuck in my head, “...from the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me…”

We rolled in to San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge! How neat is that?! 

After snapping a few pictures of the bridge from Golden Gate park, we headed into the city to take a look around. We parked at Fisherman’s Wharf….sensory overload! It’s a big tourist trap. And it was really dirty and smelly. I grabbed some chowder (which was delicious!) and then we got the heck out of there. We had fun walking up Hyde street, watching the cable car trolleys and checking out the views of the Golden Gate Bridge from the neighborhood streets. We wandered around looking for nothing in particular. We happened to see 3 Teslas on the same block, that was cool as neither of us had seen one in person! The steep hills sure were different than what we’re used to! We passed a young woman walking with her groceries up some steep stairs, looking miserable, like it was the worst day of her life. We found it quite amusing for some reason. In retrospect, I feel kind of bad for laughing at her misery. But I mean, one of her armloads was a 3 pack of paper towels...was it really THAT bad...?

Golden Gate Bridge from Hyde Street

We stumbled upon Little Italy and enjoyed some gelato and people watching. We wandered around some more looking for a place to eat dinner that had some gluten free options for me. That was difficult as most places served pizza and pasta! :)  We stumbled upon an Indian restaurant! Kind of out of place, but we were psyched on it! We enjoyed a yummy dinner and then called it a day. It’s been real San Francisco! We headed out of the city by way of the Bay Bridge and saw another Tesla! We drove about an hour inland and crashed at a cheap motel. We thought sleeping in a bed before we hit the JMT would be nice. Oh, and a shower too.  Next day it was only about a 4 hour drive to the Motherland! Yosemite!