There are moments in life that take one completely by surprise. I have no doubt anyone reading these words could list a tiresomely lengthy number of such moments and only recently. But hands up anyone who shared their toilet this weekend with a woman dressed as a 19th century chambermaid? I did.
It is a great thing to travel with your own toilet and I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve used it on city streets, in parking lots and sometimes even far from the madding crowd, on a deserted beach or lost in a wild wood. As you can see above, it is small and confined and self contained which means I have to unhook the gray five gallon bottom half to pour away the contents in some suitable place, preferably a trail head pit toilet or RV sewer dump. It’s a job I don’t mind oddly enough but for most people it is a subject of hushed dread.
My wife photographed these cheerful seaside Mennonites from Ohio gathering beach mementoes of their visit to the lost coast. One of them came to us with a “strange request” which I figured might be a walk through of our unusual home, actually a common enough request. But no. She immediately gained my instant respect for her bravery and utter fearlessness when she asked if she could use our loo. I fell over myself to accommodate her and spare her further blushes.
How she sorted herself out in our tiny space I don’t know but I closed the sliding door assuring her she was invisible inside and stood guard outside with my back to her out of her sight. Our outside windows allow no light in and she also had the wooden door to assure her privacy.
I find myself at a loss to understand the range of eccentricities this country encompasses but I have met Mennonite farmers and missionaries all over the place in the Midwest and Belize most notably and my mind boggles thinking of them dressed for a Polish winter in a Belizean summer while doing hard manual labor. I was pleased to be able to help out a very poised and cheerful member of this oddball community in distress. It felt like one oddball helping another and I greatly enjoyed the convergence of our two very different but equally marginal lifestyles in a country packed with suburban conformity.
I think we caused some confusion when we took a dip. Swimming is not a thing they would do in public certainly but like I said the US accommodates a range of eccentricities and Layne and I wanted to see what the water temperature was at this far north latitude, after the Mennonites wandered off looking for sea shells.
The seawater was clam and flat yet cold to a degree hard to imagine and after a minute of desperate paddling up to our necks we were back on land absorbing all the sun’s rays we could. I have to admit the endorphins released by this encounter with the water were quite pleasant but not enough to make me want to do that again.
After our second night parked alongside Mattole Road we made a u-turn and drove north up the hill toward Ferndale 25 miles and 90 minutes away. The road was pretty awful, not as bad as the southern approach through Petrolia but it was a rough unpredictable ride mixing newly paved bits and ghastly potholes in rapid succession.
It was a 15 to 20 mile per hour road with sudden braking for the bad bits and lots of pulling over for locals with no regard for their vehicles’ long term integrity. The views were excellent.
Ferndale, the terminus of this wild hour long drive is a pretty town, a place I’d like to visit after Covid if we find ourselves bowling along Highway 101 again. I seem to come to this region once every 35 years on average so I expect I shall run out of time before my next s hiked visit to Jefferson Country. There is a vocal but small group of libertarians who want to create a separate state in Northern California and southern Oregon dedicated to supposed Jeffersonian principles of small government. No action so far on their part but they do have good weed which may be slowing them down.
We re-joined the main coastal road and they’ve named US 101 the “Redwood Highway” around here so we knew what to expect.
Actually we did not expect salmon jerky of which we bought a sample and it was quite excellent, like smoked salmon but not slippery like lox. Recommended.
We found the redwoods, though I have to say we lived among them for twenty years in Santa Cruz, and still they are awe inspiring. There is a short diversion called the Drury Parkway off Highway 101 and we took the turn with our loot from a brief stop at the Eureka Costco and had roast chicken sandwiches for lunch.
If you’ve never seen the redwoods, so called owing to their bark, you owe it to yourself. They have two enemies: fire and wind. Otherwise they live forever and some of these trees were around when Methuselah stalked the Middle East. They make excellent lumber and early US businesspeople tore through old growth stands to build equally indestructible homes with their wood. That practice has been banned but old growth trees are rare.
Redwoods (Palo Colorado in Spanish, and those early explorers were equally intoxicated by these trees) grow on this coast as they water themselves from the moisture of the marine inversion clouds that come overhead. Far overhead. They are astonishing, such huge trees living off mist drizzle.
To give you some perspective:
It was cold so I walked Rusty for a short while and I photographed the memorial commemorating brothers killed in World War Two. I assume the two names were brothers…All I could find out was that the grove was established in 1965 by their uncle a judge originally from Kentucky.
I can’t imagine how their mother coped but that was a different time and stoicism was the order of the day.
It was a somber moment standing submerged at the bottom of the long shadows cast by these vast trunks.
We rejoined Highway 101 and turned north. Crescent City, the last major town in California and county seat of Del Norte County was a long line of box stores lining a four lane highway.
Billboards promising the best of Oregon weed distracted my elderly brain from the moment we were about to pass the Stateline but I half caught the store itself stuffed with modern legal cannabis on the California side of the creek that separates the two states.
The first pleasant change was the vast rest area we found just north of Brookings. Oregon offered us a free dump site and free water to fill our tank. And a vast spacious rest area to walk our dog. Nice.
In Oregon US Highway 101 becomes the coastal scenic highway where California runs its own state Highway One up the coast.
Aside from the fresh scenic views along the coast we also reverted to having our gas pumped for us just like in Mexico. We thought we did well finding regular for $5:05 in Oregon but it was even less expensive the closer we got to Washington State. And we saved a lot by paying cash. Weird.
A little afternoon sun, a break in the heavy clouds cover cheered us up a little as we drive north.
63 degrees and heavily overcast was not our idea of a pleasant August day. We turned the heat on in the cabin and were glad of it. I had been re-reading about Webb Chiles sailing Cape Horn freezing cold and wet and the thought of it chilled me.
“No Overnight Parking ” is the mantra of course. Nothing daunted my navigator found an isolated open parking space three miles up in the hills among the trees far from the hectic coastal traffic.
It was silent and perfect and free. We had beans and steak and tortillas and cider and slept the sleep of the just. Our first afternoon out of California at last.
The blue dot marks the spot.
