Who knew that far north California was filled with Victorian architectural splendor? Ferndale, just south of Eureka, is known as Victorian Ferndale and is a delightful village filled with pastel-colored homes and businesses with contrasting touches of gingerbread woodwork. The abundance of such architecture helps the city to live up to its title. The entire area around the city is pastoral. Cattle graze in green fields that gently roll across the landscape. Tall white wooden farm homes are surrounded by rust-red barns that have a distinctive Scandinavian feel with their off-centered and steeply-pitched roofs that fall almost to the ground.

The old town of Eureka is also a Victorian gem. Along the harbor are imposing Victorian mansions. A Victorian garden is a well-tended park near the city zoo. On the other side of the zoo is the entrance to a wonderful city park given by a landholder who decided that, rather than cutting the magnificent redwoods on the property for profit, it would be better to preserve “God’s most wondrous handiwork” as a protected park. It is an inspirational feeling to step into the shadows of the redwoods. You immediately realize how small you are since the massive girth of the redwood base is itself made small by the towering height of the tree. It is an immediate feeling of smallness, and yet, awe at the same time. So, right in the middle of Eureka is a valley park with tended trails that weave through 300 plus tall trees and along a stream the follows the valley floor. We had a joyful and peaceful walk.

The man-made Victorian blends well with the God-made surroundings in Northern California.

On a different note, this year’s long journey was prefaced by my statement that Kathy and I were also on a quest to reinvent ourselves. So far, she has not been too keen on some of my ideas. Since we have seen several tattoo parlors recently, I suggested we get one. I had persuasive rationale. I noted that I didn’t want to do the spa thing, but went ahead and did a couple’s spa treatment with her. I let strange women crawl all over my body for her. She still had a flat out answer of “No!” I have dropped it for now. The journey isn’t over yet and there is reinvention remaining to do. WEG

I wanted to drive the Lost Coast Road north of Ft. Bragg since it is very sparsely trafficked and runs through a desolate region of California. It is also the meeting point of many of the earthquake fault plates. As a result, the area has more earthquakes than other places in California. I wanted to be able to say I had done it and survived. It didn’t happen as planned, since I learned about the magnificent redwood forests at the end of CA-1 in Northern California near Eureka and decided to take that drive instead. Kathy was happy with the change of plans, and I must say the drive along the Avenue of the Giants was awesome. California’s Humboldt Redwood State Park is home to the world’s oldest standing forest. There are older individual trees in other places, but this forest has stood for over 2,000 years and what remains is from what was once the planet’s largest forest. Many of the trees are over 360 feet tall (the tallest trees in the world), and the deep shadow the canopy produces is ethereal. We found ourselves pulled towards walking amongst these magnificent trees many times. I also drove the van through the hollowed-out part of the Chandelier Tree, which is a mere 315 feet tall, but still growing. It was a fantastic drive.

Once in Eureka, we settled into our motel, and went to eat at a restaurant next door. All of the sudden, the building began to shake. Yip, it was a mild earthquake. So, I had my earthquake fix in what I discovered to be the most northern point of the Lost Coast. What a day! WEG

Over the years I have planned to go to gardens as we traveled because Kathy loves them so. Our children knew that I would drive out of the way because a roadside sign advertised a garden of some type. They got used to going with the flow.

Today , the Mendocino Botanical Garden was about a mile from our hotel in Ft. Bragg, California–no out of the way there. This garden is the only coastal botanical garden in California and our three hours there were filled with beautiful and educational sights. Massive flower plantings representing the coastal climate filled acres of the garden and they were in full bloom–breath taking. The rest of the garden was divided into sections representing coastal areas around the world and they were educationally marked and interesting. The California vegetable garden was wonderful, the dahlia (in full bloom) quadrangle was colorful and bright and the coastal trail was magnificent. It was a very satisfying time and my wife was more than happy! I did well, WEG

California Highway 1 is a phenomenal drive! Highway 1 is not to be confused with Highway 101. At times they are the same road, but for most of the drive they are separate highways, although they run parallel to each other. The difference is that Highway 1 is the coastal road, and therefore, the more rugged and scenic road. Highway 101 is more like a freeway, oftentimes multi-lane, running a straight line from point to point and rarely coming within sight of the coast. Highway 1 is anything but straight.

On our journey from San Francisco to Ft. Bragg we were simply awed with the beauty we encountered. There were more hairpin turns than could be imagined and most times no guard rails of any kind. Going up and down, from about a thousand feet to shore level with turn after turn over and over again made the head spin. The views were amazing. Rolling hills, sand dunes, sheer cliffs, bays with massive rock protrusions, sandy shores, bogs, estuaries, deep valleys and always brilliant blue water were within sight. At times, we found ourselves in deep forests and at other times in flower covered treeless hills, but all the time the coastline was to the immediate west. We thought this was the most impressive part of our coastal journey thus far in California, and that says a lot, since all of Highway 1 so far has been amazing. WEG