Today I can finally use my camping gear, because we’re staying at an official campsite where you’re allowed to make a fire. I light up the gas cooker and make coffee for Dawn and me. Then I bake some blueberry pancakes for breakfast. It’s nice to start the day with a friend.
After breakfast we pack our stuff and drive together on highway 1. Dawn leads with her Jeep and I follow her. The road stays beautiful and we stop several times to take pictures of the beautiful beaches and coastal views. At some point I signal to Dawn to stop, because I recognize a place from years ago. It’s an old Russian fort build in the 1800s called Fort Ross. It’s completely made of wood and is located in a bay on top of a cliff. We watch a short movie of the history of the place in the visitor center and then walk around. It’s interesting to see how people lived back then and we realize how life is so different now than only 200 years ago. After we’ve seen the whole fort we drive further to a restaurant in a small town to have lunch. Even though we spend most of the time in our own cars, it is nice to do part of the road trip together and have all the stops in between.
In the afternoon we stop at another beach and enjoy the sunshine for a while. I love this weather. The fresh air from the ocean combined with the warmth of the sun makes it quite perfect. We drive further and at the end of the afternoon we make a last stop at a Starbucks to have another coffee together and to say goodbye. Dawn has to go east from here and I continue on my way North. It’s about two and half more hours to the town where I want to be tonight, but it’s a nice drive. The winding roads of highway one are fun to ride and a good practice for my driving skills. The last hour of the trip the highway 1 comes back together with highway 101 with a higher speed limit. I have almost the whole road to myself, so I’m pretty fast in the town of Eureka where I’ll stay for tonight. I park in front of a Starbucks, which is already closed by now. I’ll go there tomorrow morning to have a workday. Like I said before, I try to work at least as possible, but now I need a day to catch up. It’s okay, because I’m close to Redwoods National Park, so when I’m done with work I can go there for some hiking and getting back in vacation mode.
