You may know that I’m not a fan of driving. As much as possible in real life I avoid driving:
– to get steps
– to save the planet and
– to minimise the chances of dying in a car crash
(and not at all in that order).
Imagine my surprise then that today I drove for 400 miles and it was, give or take, entirely pleasant.
An early start got us over the Tillamook State Forest in the first of what would be a pattern of very misty and very wet mountain climbs (soundtracked by SFA).
Rockaway Beach was as good a place as any to start our journey down Hwy 101. We ate in a trad diner, where we were the only ones without hearing aids or oxygen, walked on the beach so Claire could pick a pebble to transport south, and were California-bound by 0930. Here is a moody stump that I liked. 
The West coast is just wonderful. It’s a series of inlets, rocks, beaches and generally wild landscapes that afford opportunity after opportunity to stop the car and gawp. We did. In between we covered hundreds of miles south, hugging the coast and eschewing the Interstate. It was wonderful.
But my lack of planning proved a bit of a problem. Realising that the one fixed thing we have is Alcatraz tickets for Friday, is misjudged the run south. Consequently, the last two hours was done in darkness, so we more or less missed the biggest of the redwoods. There will be more tomorrow but it felt a shame to do any of this after dusk. Depeche Mode provided the tunes for this leg and their grandeur (and grandiosity) were pretty well-suited.
Eureka, CA therefore becomes a purely functional stopover and we should arrive in Frisco by lunchtime tomorrow. We did say hi to massive Paul Bunyan and his massive blue bull, because I think I first saw him in a copy of Look and Learn and it seemed rude not to.
As art goes, they are both, breathtakingly abysmal. Like they opened the design competition to the under 5s. If this was your child’s best effort, you’d be packing the RV whilst he was at his gran’s. But seeing as how this coast is way too cool for the giant fibre-glass statues of whatever produce they claim they’re the home of outside every town, PB was the only option on this trip.
Other stuff: needless to say we didn’t run. The Monzo card is working brilliantly. Everything else is peachy. Tomorrow I’ve got to navigate into the heart of the City. Against the backdrop of hurricanes and earthquakes, it’s nothing, obviously.
Next year we’re thinking of going to Nambia.
Try not to lick it 