Where size matters

Another rainy day in Oregon so we got some laundry and shopping done then settled into Honeyman State Park on the central coast where we spotted a beachful of sea lions and were surprised by the number of massive sand beaches we came across. At the state park one of the campgrounds was at full capacity with ATV / Dune Buggy owners who had direct access to thousands of acres of sand dunes along the beach. It was fun to watch them head out in the morning but they were long gone in the endless landscape of dunes by the time I was able to get out to the end of the campsite trail. If it was a little warmer and drier it would have been worth spending the time and money to rent an ATV for the day.

We continued down the coast with a brief stop into Bandon Dunes........3 beautiful golf courses but not a lot of traffic on this day. Their high rates ($275 a round) are going to cause them problems in this economy when the weather is less than perfect.

As soon as we hit the California border the coastal redwoods started appearing majestically. They were much larger (up to 350 feet) than the large sitka spruce trees that we had seen in Washington and Oregon. Their bark can be a foot thick which makes them very resilient to disease and fire so they can grow for as long as 2000 years.....we saw many that were over 1000 years old....kind of makes you feel like a baby again. The giant sequioas were nearly as impressive. We drove along the Avenue of the Giants (32 miles) which is the old highway 101. The trees keep growing so the road is getting narrower every year and is mostly dark even during the middle of the day due to the canopy cover.

We saw a weather forecast that indicated the temperatures inland were going to be in the low 20'sC and sunny for the next week so we decided to alter our route to take advantage of some steady sunlight.

Once we reached Redding (about 200 km's east of the coast) we followed the Sacramento River south. One interesting diversion was at the Coleman National Fish Hatchery where we had a walking tour of the operation. They raise and release 25 million chinook salmon every year (and another few million steelhead trout). Only 200K of the salmon are able to make their way 200 miles down the river to the ocean and back again 3 years later to spawn (they track by tagging some with microchips), but each of the females can lay up to 5000 eggs of which 85% make it through to the smolt stage so the cycle keeps on going due to the hatchery which harvests the eggs. The last few salmon were still climbing the ladder on their way back home....it was an amazing process to observe.

After several days of sun and a few more nice stops along the way..........the Olive Pit in Corning (free tasting bar) and Clear Lake (lunch by the water) we returned today to the coast and stopped for the evening at Fort Bragg. We'll tour the area tomorrow and head slowly down the coast again before heading into the wine regions north of San Francisco.