West Coast coasting

No, I have not gone plunging off Highway 1 into the ocean, although it certainly was a possibility this week. I failed to realize how isolated the coast roads (101 through Oregon and 1 through northern California) were from civilization. No net access anywhere that wasn’t long distance, and I had no luck at all getting the computer to work with the funky calling card.

I don’t have a lot of time right now to fill in the details, so here’s just a short take on my trip through Washington, Oregon, and northern California.

Washington, from Bremerton over to the coast: Little traffic on a weekday, and a longer journey than it looks on the map. I’m glad I took T’s advice to skip the drive around the top of the Olympic Peninsula, as it would have added weeks to the journey, I’m sure. Nice drive, though.

Oregon, part the northern: Big, wide, windy beaches, practically deserted. Ticky-tacky tourist trap towns. Fog. Many, many motor homes (campers, as we call them back east), with no white-trash stigma attached.

Oregon, part the southern: Less big but equally windy beaches. Eternal dunes. Fog, fog. Fewer, smaller, less tacky towns.

California, part the redwoods: Huge trees. Huge. Almost spooky, definitely cathedrallike. Fog, fog, fog. Gorgeous, schizophrenic roads, 101 thinking it’s a highway, but no, it’s twisty turny through the trees! But no, it’s a highway again! No, almost an abandoned logging road! No, a highway again!

California, part the falling off the edge, aka Highway 1: Now you hear people talk about Highway 1, and I’m thinking nice coast road, like Lake Rd. in Ohio, or A1A or whatever it is in Florida, or Kam Highway in Hawaii, but no, this sucker is the road to Hana times a million: higher, faster, and with NO GUARDRAILS in most places. Most people I know could not hack this road at all, and certainly not at 55 mph. What a thrill for the most part. I had only a couple of places where I felt my stomach drop as I rounded a corner. Fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog. And piddly little towns! You hear about Mendocino as a great tourist destination, but I am here to tell you that it is about the size of Put-in-Bay, Ohio (albeit certainly more upscale), that bastion of partiers in the Lake Erie islands. Mom did have a good point the other day in saying that well, people have heard of Haleiwa and the North Shore, too, and there isn’t much there, either. Still, at least the North Shore is a big area and encompasses all of the surrounding beaches and stuff, whereas Mendocino is just a high-priced spit on the map. Point Reyes lighthouse: worth the 302 steps, even in the fog.

I’ve planted my butt here at Stanford for the next week at the Stanford Professional Publishing Course. I’ve met some great people so far, including some people I have talked with before through the phone or e-mail, and have made some good connections already — and it’s only day 2. But now I have to run, because I have plans for a Jamba Juice dinner, and they close in 45 minutes. (The good part about being a returning SPPC participant — and ERC, if you will — is that we don’t have to participate in the group projects. Of course, that does leave you without a built-in social group for the evenings, since most of the project groups end up hanging out together for dinners and such. But I have work to do, anyway.)

So ta-ta until later.