From Colusa we travelled on to Chowchilla and on down through the humungous flat central valley of California, passing acres and acres of orchards – almonds, walnuts, pistachios, peaches and nectarines (all growing in amazing heat – 40 degrees plus) and on down to San Luis Obispo. Having had various discussions, we had decided not to go to Lake Tahoe or Yosemite further up due to the huge queues of tourists visiting (3 hour wait just to get into Yosemite!!!) so went south instead but knew we weren’t going to get as far as San Diego (too hot and there were wildfires south of LA).
We spent a couple of days in San Luis Obispo – famous for the 1772 mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa and the Madonna Inn (a pop culture landmark – rather outlandish decor in each of its 110 themed rooms!) – oh and home to the Central Coast Brewing Co – hmm, wonder which one we visited!!!!

We spent a very hot day visiting the tourist trap known as Solvang.

It was set up as a Danish community in 1911 but has developed into a rather kitsch fake European town – however, the danish pastries were lovely. We did visit the old mission Santa Ines here, built in 1804, which had beautiful gardens and was lovely and cool.

There were about 21 missions built between 1769 and 1823 by Franciscan missionaries from San Diego up to Sonoma all about a day apart and linked by the El Camino Real (Kings Road) which runs roughly along Highway 101 and is denoted along the way by mission bells on posts.

Next day we travelled the south end of the Big Sur (you can’t do it all in one go at present as it is still blocked after a huge landslide in April this year) and visited Hearst Castle, William Randolph Hearst’s 115 room hilltop house (The Enchanted Hill)! It was a collaboration between Hearst and architect Julia Morgan which lasted from 1919 to 1947. It is somewhat over the top and filled with amazing art and antiquities that he collected during his lifetime and is now a Californian State Park. Although it took some 25 years to build, it was actually never finished and still remains that way. There are several tours you can do but we just did the Grand Rooms tour (taking in the Neptune Pool, Esplanade, The Cottages, Casa Grande, North unfinished terrace and Indoor Roman Pool), which also included a film.

There is a 20 minute bus tour to take you up a very steep windy road to get to the top. We never got to see any zebras (they were released onto the estate when his zoo animals were rehoused and apparently still roam the fields!!).

After our trip we headed on up the Big Sur and came across the Elephant Seal viewing area – we weren’t quite sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t seeing these huge creatures so close up. They are on the beach and the public can view them from a cordoned pathway. There were some year old pups who had completed their first migration – they seem so small compared the giant adult males!

We ended our day with a pint and chilli at Central Coast Brewing.

We’ve left Windsor and travelled to Colusa.
Our 4 nights in Windsor were supposed to be a bit of a treat in a slightly better hotel (hah) with a pool for a chill out. Let’s just say that did not happen and left us with a very unpleasant memory. However, Windsor is a lovely town, laid out around a town green, with some great people who reminded us why we were travelling!!! We had intended to go on an organised wine tour of the Sonoma Valley but discovered that there are wine tasting rooms in Windsor, so we just tried those – cheaper too!!! Well, in reality, we only got as far as one – Baldassari and stayed as we loved both the wine and the company there!

We popped to Sonoma (lovely town based around the old Solano Mission and Mission Barracks from the Mexican War) and Healdsburg (gorgeous high-end shopping area and lots of wine tasting rooms). We probably didn’t do the area justice as couldn’t quite get into the right frame of mood but hey ho – it’s taken 15 weeks of travelling to reach our first low point so we probably haven’t done too badly!!!!!
Sonoma County has links with Charles M Schulz, creator of Peanuts, so we kept coming across life size cartoon characters dotted around the town!

After Windsor we travelled inland to get around San Francisco (doing a loop around, going south then coming back up the coast to return the car to San Francisco before spending a few days there), via Clear Lake (apparently the oldest in the US) but should have been called Green Lake – it was very smelly too but seemingly this is a summer thing!! We did see an Osprey fly overhead with a fish in its talons. Then on to Colusa – a tiny town in the Central Valley, sitting in 38 degrees, so hot but where we met some lovely characters – yes, that’s what travelling is about – meeting new people and listening to their amazing stories. One such couple are driving a lovely 1949 Ford Shoebox around – they’re off to Montano soon in a convoy with 7 other hotrods!! Oh, and weirdly, we’re in rice growing country!!!! And as per Asian rice paddies there are white egrets here too.

We headed from the heat of Willits back to the coast, where it was a lot cooler. The road was incredibly windy but stunning. We stopped at Fort Bragg and saw the Skunk Train go out (it used to go through to Willits, but now only about 3 miles due to tunnel damage).

Then we travelled on down Highway 1 – wow this stretch of the road is not for the faint hearted, (a couple of times I nearly sat on Andys lap, bloomin high up and close to the edge!). We stopped off to visit Point Cabrillo light station, built in 1909 and now refurbished, along with the lightkeepers (or Wickies as they were known – keeping the wicks alight) houses which can now be rented as holiday cottages.

The next stop was Mendocino – a pretty coastal town, still with the old water towers intact in places and used in several movies and the murder mystery series ‘Murder She Wrote’.

Then, on for a quick stop at the Point Arena Lighthouse (built in 1870 and 113ft high)

and some seal watching

before carrying on this scary road (several places where a lane has disappeared over the edge!!) to Jenner – there we headed inland up the Russian River Gorge, past stunning vineyards up to the lovely town of Windsor. We didn’t get a chance to visit Bodega Bay (bit further down Highway 1 but film buffs will know it for Alfred Hitchcocks’ film “The Birds”

In Crescent City we stopped at the quirky Curly Redwood Lodge (all the wood comes from one single curly redwood tree and built in 1957). Yes we were in the giant coastal redwood area so we went to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park where we stopped for short hikes to see big Redwood trees like the Corkscrew (3 redwoods growing and twisted together to form one), the big tree reputedly 1500 years old and the Cathedral of trees.

We saw endangered Roosevelt Elk on the elk prairie and then lots of brown pelicans and the last surviving World War 2 radar station on the coast just off the coastal trail at Klamath. We also had, of course, to do the slightly tacky tourist thing of driving through a Redwood tree.

Then on down highway 101, hopping off on side roads to visit places like Sue-meg village – a traditional native indian village of buildings that are still used for teaching and a redwood dugout canoe that takes 7 years to make and is then handed down through generations.

We drove on through the towns of Arcata, Trinidad, Eureka, Samoa (fog bound) and on to the lovely old Victorian town of Ferndale – full of beautiful old buildings, often used in films. We stopped for a pint in the very atmospheric Palace saloon, complete with antique shuffleboard, original bar backdrop where local characters play dice for a pot behind the bar (barkeep said it’d been won 3 times the previous week so could be expensive now – winner buys everyone a round plus 10% for the bar!!!).

Our accommodation for the night was Shaw House Inn, an old frontier house built in 1854. A beautiful house with so much character still within it and everything you could possibly ask for in a B&B.

Before leaving Ferndale, we popped into the cemetery to see the great pair of headstones put in place by a married couple who are still alive – loved the carrot cake recipe on the back of her headstone.

Then on through Humboldt Redwoods State Park and the Avenue of the Giants to see more trees!!!!! The Founders Tree is allegedly the tallest at over 300ft. Coastal Redwoods are among the fastest growing trees on earth and can grow between 3 and 10 feet a year. They also have a unique thick bark that protects them from insects and fire. Sometimes, if fire does get through the bark and into the heartwood, it forms caves known as goose pens. We saw lots of these here.

It was a lovely drive but the temperature was rising fast so we just headed off to an air-conditioned motel in Willits (accommodation is cheaper inland than at Fort Bragg or Mendocino where we had originally hoped to stay) for the rest of the afternoon!

Depoe Bay is known as the whale watching capital of the Oregon coast and we’d agree with that – we saw several whales (spouts and tails) just whilst we were walking along the sea front after breakfast! Depoe even has its own Blow Hole on the shore (a geological oddity that allows for water spouts as high as 20-30 feet in the air if the sea conditions are right (too calm for us so only a couple of feet if that!). It’s also got the smallest harbour (Guinness world book of records), it certainly has a narrow entrance, especially at low tide!

We took a day’s ride out along highway 101 down to Cape Perpetua stopping off at the many stunning outlooks and rock formations along the way such as Otter Rock, Cape Foulweather (more like Calmweather during our visit!), Devil’s Punchbowl,

Newport and the beautiful Yaquina Bay bridge & two lighthouses – Yaquina Bay (only wooden one on the coast) and Yaquina Head (93 feet high, apparently the tallest on the coast),

Seal Rock, and the Devil’s Churn and Spout Horn at Cape Perpetua and view from the top of the Cape along the coastline.

Next day we carried on down through Florence, quick hike up to Heceta Head lighthouse (masses of harbour seals around the rocks here with pups), through Reedsport and past the massive dune area, quick photo stop at Umpqua lighthouse before overnighting in Coos Bay (our worst motel to date and we’ll say no more on that!!).

Happily leaving Coos Bay, we stopped off at Cape Arago – well, this definitely made up for our rubbish motel! We explored the lovely Shore Acres Garden, then at Simpson Reef wildlife lookout, we saw harbour seals, very noisy californian sealions and one juvenile elephant sealion. Volunteers had set up binoculars and telescopes and happily identified the wildlife for us.

We then came across a weekly Coast Guard rescue exercise, which we watched for a while! Then, on down to the lovely town of Bandon (Cranberry Capitol of the west coast) with the Coquille River lighthouse, some strangely shaped and named sea stacks on the beach (including Face Rock).

Had to have a look at Cape Blanco lighthouse built in 1870 and reputedly the oldest and highest (you may have detected a trend here – everything has to be older, bigger, higher etc here and all the towns have straplines!!).
From Coos Bay down to Brooking, the coastline is stunning, and we were once again blessed with mainly blue skies. Along the Samual H Boardman state scenic corridor, the coastline is scattered with many rock stacks and arches (Arch Rock, Thunder Rock, Whaleshead etc).

Then we travelled on through Brooking and said goodbye to Oregon and crossed the border into California, where we were promptly engulfed with the infamous sea fog!

From Astoria, we headed inland up the beautiful Columbia River Gorge – although we hadn’t expected it to be quite as hot (mid 30s) and stopped at Horsetail Falls for lunch on the way.

We stayed at the Celilio Inn in The Dalles, right opposite The Dalles Dam. We had a couple of lovely sunsets just watching the dam and river from the patio, enjoying a lovely breeze to cool us down. Our first nights dinner was at Clock Tower Ales, which is the old courthouse and site of the last public hanging in Oregan in 1905!
We managed a very short walk around town and came across the American Empress paddlesteamer moored up on her journey between Portland and Spokane.

I even got my Scoopers ice cream – only 30plus flavours to choose from here – dark cherry was lovely and Andy enjoyed Caramel Caribou – just what was needed in the heat. We also loved all the murals painted around the town.

Next day we drove to Hood River to visit the WAAAM (Western Antique Aeroplane Automobile Museum). Wow, we’ve never seen so many early era planes and cars – all pristine, beautifully presented and apparently in working order! We spent a good 3 hours there checking them all out.

Then we went around the aptly named Fruit Loop – a lovely drive around near Mount Hood where the soil is volcanic and fruit grows well. Heavily laden cherry trees at this time of year and lots of cideries and wineries.

We also visited the exquisite Hope Ranch Lavender – stunning colours, lovely essential oil, and lavender sprays, and pick your own bouquets but BEST of all was the delicious homemade soft lavender ice cream! We also got some great advice about how to care for our own lavender plant at home.

On our way back, we diverted on to the historic Highway 30 and wound our way up to Rowena Crest – amazing views of the Gorge from the top and also the switchback we were going to travel down!!!

Finally, we left the heat of The Dalles, the turkey vultures and american pelicans, and headed back to the coast. We stopped off at the Bridge of the Gods (man-made version but the name originally came from the native Indians verbal stories of a huge landslide on the Washington side of the Gorge that completely blocked the river for many years), and Bonneville Lock and Dam.

Very interesting free tour here about the history of the Gorge and the dam. You can see the fish ladder that the adult salmon use (the juveniles go down the spillways on their journey apparently having to avoid sealions at Bonneville or american pelicans at The Dalles dam!) – believe it or not the fish are counted manually because technology has not been able to count and sort them into different species (yet!).

Then on past Portland, we came across the Evergreen Aircraft and Space Museum. We very nearly didn’t stop but decided we needed to stretch our legs. So glad we did because we discovered this museum is the home of Howard Hughes Spruce Goose!!! My goodness, it’s one hell of a huge machine – couldn’t get a picture of it all, it’s that big!!!

Again, excellent displays in both the aircraft and the space museums. There’s also a water park hanger with a 747 on the top that is part of a water slide – how mad is that?

We continued our trip through hazelnut and walnut groves before getting back onto Highway 101 and the Pacific coast, which was much cooler (phew) and stopped in Depoe Bay.

We’ve just spent 4 nights in Astoria on the mouth of the Columbia River (the same river we walked by in Revelstoke in Canada!!) and is often called little San Francisco due to the hill in the middle! It has lots of lovely old Victorian style houses, a maritime museum which looked great but didn’t get chance to visit, an old trolly tram that travels the 3.1 mile shorefront, and is home to scenes from various films such as The Goonies, Kindergarten Cop, Free Willy and Short Circuit amongst others.

We took a day out to visit Tillamook Air Museum for Andy to get his aircraft fix! It was a naval air base that housed blimps (K class airships) in world war 2 to escort shipping up the coast and which now has a range of aircraft and interesting information boards housed in the largest wooden hanger remaining.

We attempted to visit Tillamook Creamery but didn’t bother staying as queues were stupid – who knew a creamery could be so popular? On the return journey, we revisited Cannon Beach and managed to get a photo of Haystack rock – you couldn’t see it in the morning as the marine layer (sea mist) had come right inland.

On the 4th of July, we spent exploring Astoria itself. We stopped at the Astoria Brewing Company taproom, where we met Rigel, the bar host and an artist. He’s got a very interesting background, having grown up in Guam with hippy parents.

Then we met a couple from Bristol, Helen & Rob – Helen grew up about 15 miles from me!!! Small world eh?
Then onto Fort George brewery before having a Mexican meal with Rob and Helen. We walked back UP THAT hill before it got dark (no street lights) and saw several deer eating peoples front gardens, including one with 2 young fawns. And then the 4th July fireworks started – what a racket!!!

Next day we hopped over one of the many bridges in Astoria to Werrington to see the rusting hulk of the Peter Iredale, a 4 masted steel barque ailing vessel that ran aground in October 1906.

Then onto Fort Stevens, which was constructed in 1863 and saw service for 84 years. It was also the site of a Japanese submarine attack, June 21st 1942. We watched a bald headed eagle on her nest with a chick for a while – the nest was on the old chimney of the Battery Clark Command Station!!

Then, back to Astoria to visit the 125 foot Astoria column, dedicated in 1926 and which tells the history of Astoria’s pivotal years from before white people arrived up to the arrival of the railroads in 1880s. There are stunning views from the column, and you can see across to the aptly named Saddle Mountain on the Oregan Coast mountain range.

We picked up a hire car in Seattle, got the ferry across to Bainbridge Island

and then drove through lovely countryside with glimpses of Puget Sound along the way, we passed through the pretty Port Gamble (now a site of historical interest but was an old logging village) with its old houses, passed by lavender fields and the John Wayne marina at Sequim and then stopped at Port Angeles for a couple of days in a delightful tiny home. Our first day started off very misty so we wandered the sea front of Port Angeles and then as the weather was clearing went to Hurricane Ridge – well that was the plan – it seems they have a limited number of private cars (since the visitors centre at the top burnt down in May this year) and that limit had been reached when we got to the visitor centre. The only way up then was via a shuttle bus that was back down in town where we’d just travelled up from. Not well advertised at all, so we gave up and headed for Lake Crescent instead – so glad we did!

We spent several hours walking the Moments in Time trail (really interesting information boards on this trail) and the Marymere Falls (bit tame by previous waterfall standards but still lovely!) and had lunch by the lake in glorious sunshine before heading back.

After leaving Port Angeles, we carried on along Highway 101, passing Lake Crescent again (and also an overturned logging lorry) and headed up towards Cape Flattery – that coastline is beautiful with views across to Vancouver Island. We spotted seals on the rocks, deer in the verges and when we stopped at Sekiu for coffee we were lucky enough to watch several bald headed eagles flying around the bay – two young ones were there too.

We headed straight up to Cape Flattery, parked up and hiked to the end – it is the furthest north west tip of the USA and we got there just before the infamous fog rolled in so could see the lighthouse on Tatoosh Island.

Then, back to Neah Bay for lunch before heading to Forks. Forks was an old timber town but now is making its name from Sasquatch hunters and The Twilight Saga films (based but not filmed in Forks).

From Forks, we took the trip to the Hoh Rainforest in the middle of Olympic National Forest, bit of a queue to get in but worth it. This area gets 140 inches rain a year (over 70 to date this year) and because of this, there are amazing curtains of mosses and lichens growing on the trees – quite eerie in places. We did a couple of the shorter trails (the Spruce and the Hall of Mosses) but you can hike to Mount Olympus from here (if prepared).

It was fascinating to see so many nursery trees in this area – huge old trees that have lived their lives, fallen, started to rot away, giving other trees opportunity to grow on them – you see new trees (quite large ones) growing on old rotting trunks. Mostly, they grow in rows along the old trunk so where you see a short column of trees look at their base – the old tree may be there still! This process takes many years.
We stopped off for coffee at the Hard Rain cafe, just cos we liked the name!!!! Sadly, no keyrings!

We left Forks (all the shops decorated in preparation for Independence Day celebrations) and meandered on down Highway 101 to Westport. Along the way we stopped off at the beaches – Ruby, beaches 4, 3, 2 and South – they are the short stretch of accessible beaches on this part of the coast and once again we were so lucky with the weather – it was sunny with clear blue skies but with odd patches of sea mist – usually this coastline is fog bound, even if it’s clear a mile inland!!

The coast here is stunning, wave sculpted rocks, pebble beaches and SO much sun bleached driftwood it was amazing. We even spotted seals playing in the surf at beach 4.
We stopped by the big old Cedar tree but sadly it looks as if it’s dying now – wonder how long before it becomes a nursery tree.

We spent a couple of days in Westport relaxing. Not a huge amount to do there but had a walk to the marina – Westport is a fishing town so lots of fresh fish for sale, it’s also a good surfing area apparently – our accommodation (Westport Loge) rented out surfboards etc. We walked some of the dune trail and met a gentleman walking (well zipping along really) on a 3 wheeled contraption – turns out it is an alinker bike/frame and has given this man with MS his life back. When we got back, we were entertained by a good band (start of the 4th July celebration weekend), albeit without a drummer. He’s a tug boat captain and had been called to take a boat out!!!!

Next, we drove down to Astoria, Oregan past cranberry bogs and the stunning Pacific coastline. We stopped off at South Bend to see the Pacific County courthouse – a rather magnificent building erected in 1910. It looms over the small town and has a stained glass dome, which, being a Sunday, we couldn’t get in to see. South Bend also claims to be the oyster capital of the world. Then, on to Cape Disappointment, where we hiked to the Cape D lighthouse, had a picnic lunch in Deadman’s Cove and also had a tour of the North Head lighthouse. It’s amazing to see how the coastline has changed here since building two jetties, which changed the course of the mighty Columbia river. Cape Disappointment is where Lewis and Clark sighted the Pacific for the first time since crossing the US on their epic 2000 mile expedition.. Our final stop was Long Beach on the 28 mile Long Beach peninsula – crazy busy due to the holiday weekend so we just stopped for a short walk, picture of the rather large frying pan and an ice cream before heading into Oregan over the impressive Astoria-Megler bridge and onto our next AirBnB for 4 nights.

We spent 4 days exploring Seattle in glorious sunshine. We visited Seattle Centre, looked at the Space Needle (nope, didn’t go up this one!), loved the stunning (but expensive) Chihuly Glass and gardens, travelled the 60 year old one stop monorail, looked at the crazy queues at the first Starbucks and the Pike Place chowder and decided not to bother with either, enjoyed the chaotic Pike Place market with its fresh fish and veg stalls and a myriad of other local artisans, chilled out in Pioneer Square, enjoyed a pint in a very old pub, The Central, bought the obligatory keyring at the Hard Rock Cafe (declined to stay for a drink when they warned us it would be a 22% service charge!), and wandered along the front by the old piers where the thousands of prospectors arrived to buy their kit before heading out to the Klondike for gold. We tried to go to the Starbucks Reserve but they were closed as the staff were on strike so ended up at a food truck instead for a very tasty jambalaya!
We explored our suburb where we stayed and had a wonderful walk around Green Lake and also went out to Ballard to see the impressive Hiram M Chittenden Locks – they link the Washington Lake Canal to Puget Sound. We watched both the small and large locks in action, caught sight of a playful seal, before taking a wander around the botanical gardens.
We’re now looking forward to hiring a car for a few weeks and heading down highway 101 along the Pacific coastline.