The Lost Coast and Ferndale, CA

We decided to take a drive to the Lost Coast and boy what a drive it was! The road started out pretty good although windy and up and down hills, see picture below on the left.  Second picture below on the right is the type of road we ended up on as we traveled further along.  

We drove for about two hours before we saw anything that looked like coastline.  Our directions said, " because of its remoteness and relative inaccessibility--only a few back roads lead into the  area."  No kidding.                                             The Lost Coast Range is part of the King Range National Conservation Area and is unlike any other place in the continental United States.  Here, in this 35-mile long, 68,000-area stretch of coastal wilderness, the mountains rise directly out of the sea.  The King Range lies at the base of a tectonic anomaly known as the Mendocino Junction, where three of the earth's plates come together.  Because of this the mountains rise faster than just about anywhere else in the world.

Beautiful deserted coast, which is so rare in commercialize California. We continued on for another hour or two and ended up in the Victorian Village of Ferndale.  We were so impressed that with every turn another  Victorian home appeared, completely renovated and in great repair. Not interested in owning one of these beauties but I enjoyed them none the less.

The entire Main St. Has been designated a National Register Historic District due to its finely preserved commercial and residential buildings.  We had lunch at the meat market and it really was a meat market.  We also bought a tri-tip to take home to barbecue.

We headed over the Ferndale bridge built in 1911, and were glad to see 101 to take us home.  A long day but what an incredible trip.

Avenue of the Giants

Today, we took a 32-mile drive on a road that parallels Hwy 101 following an old stagecoach road.  As the old mill towns began to fade and traffic increased, the state decided to preserve an old section of the road running directly through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. It is called the Avenue of the Giants. There are numbered stops along the way 1-8.

This is looking up through our sun rood.  It is hard to give you an idea of the grandeur of these trees.

This is one of the fallen giants.  You can kind of see how wide they are.  Some of these trees are 300 to 500 years old.

You can compare their size to our car and my height which is 5'7".

The natural crown jewel of the county is Humboldt Redwoods State Park.  This was a definitive spot to see the magnificence of California's famous coastal redwoods.  In the early part of the last century there was nationwide effort to save what remained of the old growth redwoods on California's North Coast.  Humboldt Redwoods State Park was founded in 1921.  The Humboldt Redwoods is California's third largest state park, occupying 53,00 acres, including 17,000 acres of pristine old growth redwoods.

Richardson Grove R.V. Park

We stayed a week at Richardson Grove R.V. Park.  It is just outside of Garberville, CA.  in the heart of the Redwoods.  It was a surprise to us that it was an Assembly of God Family Camp, that rents R.V. sites to help supplement the cost of maintaining the campground.  Their Children's Camps and Family Camps are in July.  Don't think we would enjoy the park as much as we did, if we came when all the camper were here.

This was there main meeting building. It was open on three sides, with vinyl curtains to pull if it was raining.

This is the insides.  It looks like pews had been donated by some churches.

Talk about see God's beauty while worshiping.  With the open walls it was awesome!

This is a picture of the under construction new building.  It was closed but looking in the windows, It looked like a meeting hall with a commercial kitchen.  Camper stay in wood cabinets that are dotted in the wooden area. Some of the older ones are made out of logs.  Very neat, I should have got a picture.  We enjoyed our stay here and recommend it for anyone traveling this way. Only one complaint, which had nothing to do with the campground other than it's location, was no AT&T phone service.  Also our Verizon wireless was very unreliable.  The campground has free internet but their reception was weaker than ours.