I set my alarm to rise early this morning. I am staying in an oceanfront hotel in Shelter Cove, CA for the night and I was eager to get there. A friend gave me a book before I left on this road trip. It has the most scenic drives for every state according to National Geographic. It has multiple drives for California and one of them is along the Lost Coast, of which Shelter Cove is part. I didn't do my due diligence before I set out on this trip. I was going to come in by a more traditional route but there are several active fires I wanted to avoid. The largest of them is the McKinney fire which, as I write this, has consumed 60,000 acres and is only 40% contained. Following the route suggestion from the book I was gifted, I used Google Maps to set my route last night. It said it would take a little over 7 hours. I didn't bother to consider what that meant if I was going 300 miles in 7 hours. I blissfully set off to experience a day of beauty that would end in an oceanfront room.
I actually headed north for this trip south. I went up through Medford and got off the I-5 at Grants Pass. I traveled through beautiful, mountainous country. Anytime someone came up behind me and rode my bumper I used a turnout. I wanted to enjoy the ride. I opened my sunroof and let the smells of the forest make me grateful. There was a heavy fog in the forest and it rained off and on. There were redwoods and ferns. It was lovely.
Crescent City is where I finally saw the ocean.
I stopped in Crescent City, CA in search of a sandwich. I wasn't hungry yet but I had noticed as I plotted out my route the night before that there probably wasn't much to eat along the way. I stopped at a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant and ordered their Godfather sub to go. I put it in my cooler. I felt like such a good planner. I imagined myself at a roadside table overlooking the ocean where I would eat my sandwich. I drove along the 101 in the Redwood National and State Parks.
I put on the California playlist I had created the night before. I must say, there are some excellent songs about California. The road is beautiful and a little bit challenging. It is hard to do upkeep on a road buffeted by the harshness of the weather near the ocean. The views are worth the drive. I was singing and feeling like everything was right in the world. At Orick I stopped to admire four beautiful elk who were resting.
I stopped at Big Lagoon to watch two kayakers enjoy the day.
I kept on moving because I knew I had 7 hours of driving time and I wanted to enjoy my oceanfront room. But the ocean kept enticing me to stop for one more beautiful view.
Everything was going excellently until I got off the 101 at exit 692 to take Highway 211 to the Lost Coast. What I know now that I didn't know then is why it is called the Lost Coast. In 1930 this area began to experience depopulation. The steepness and other challenges related to its geography make it too costly for state and county roads to establish routes through this area, leaving it mostly undeveloped.
My book's route began in Ferndale, a quaint little town that time forgot. It still has a Rexall Drug and the main thoroughfare through town is lined with old Victorian homes. From Ferndale I headed up Matole Road. After I got to my hotel, I read this about Matole Road in an online article about dangerous roads in the 48.
The road is mostly paved....It's rough at times...Do not do this in the rain (or after a recent rain), or in the dark...The road has some steep grades...Expect large and innumerable potholes and even places where the road is half washed out. The area is seismically active, so be prepared, and take note of the tsunami warning signs and evacuation routes posted along. It is mostly two-lanes, although they're usually very narrow lanes, with plenty of curves and gravelly switchbacks.
To my surprise, it was all of those things in this article. At first I stopped to try and capture the mystic feel of the redwoods.
But stopping seemed too scary. As I was coming down off the summit, there were signs along the way saying, "Danger. Go Slow." The corners were posted at 10 mph and even that seemed dangerously fast.
When I got down to sea level, I relaxed my white knuckle grip on the steering wheel and reveled in the beauty.
Then the road curved inland. By the time I got to Petrolia, I was contemplating getting out the pee funnel I also received from my friend for this road trip. I stopped at the general store in town, bought a sparkling water and asked to use the bathroom. She told me the public wasn't allowed to use their restroom but there was a community hall up the road. I drove past this wonderful house on the way to the bathroom.
Of course, the community hall wasn't open on Sunday and so I drove on trying not to wet myself. I got to Honeydew and ran for the bathroom, only to be stopped by a pit bull. The owner called out, "Don't worry, if she bites you she will just spit your flesh back out." He finally called off his dog and I hurried past this toilet to a restroom with a toilet that looked similar to the one right outside the door.
This is the point in which Google Maps dropped my route. So I crossed my fingers and turned right. (I should have turned left.) The part of the Matole Road I had driven on up to this point was a walk in the park compared with the Wilder Ridge Road. There were many places where one lane had just fallen down the canyon. It was a ridge road so often there was a ravine on both sides of the road....or what was left of the road. At one point there was an RV with the front half hanging off the cliff. The side of the RV was covered with graffiti and its contents strewn all over the place. Mind you I was not driving a UTV or a Jeep. I was in my Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. I prayed around every corner that I wouldn't meet an oncoming vehicle. As I passed numerous mailboxes I prayed for the mail carrier that delivers on this route. I thought about how I had told my children that if anything happened to me on this trip I am fine. I have no regrets. But suddenly that didn't feel true. I did not want to die in a single car accident on the Wilder Ridge Road.
I finally made it to Shelter Cove Road and limped into town with hot brakes and a sense of relief I cannot describe adequately. I knew that I was going to arrive in the hotel lobby and get sympathy from the hotel clerk. But they have express check-in -- which means your receipt and key code are in a sealed envelope in the mailbox of the office. My room is on the third floor in a hotel without an elevator. I drug my luggage up the stairs and was rewarded with the most amazing view.
I pulled out the sandwich I bought in Crescent City, which seemed like a lifetime ago. I ate half of it as I listened to the seals bark and the waves crash right under my feet. At 8 p.m. I walked over to the Cape Mendocino Lighthouse. It was adopted by Shelter Cove when it was deactivated. For a hundred years it warned ships away from the rocks 35 miles north of here. I watched the sunset behind the lighthouse.
Then I walked up the road to a statue of a man looking down at the lighthouse.
On my way back to the hotel at dusk I saw what looked like two kittens in front of me. They weren't kittens. I was so glad I didn't get sprayed by skunks. That would have made this day even more pleasant. I sat on my balcony and enjoyed the ocean.
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