Northern California Coast – Klamath to Arcata

Gas Issues

I’ve never had the knack for timing purchases in the fields of investments or real estate, and this weakness apparently extends to gas stations as well. When in Idaho, I thought I could save ten cents a gallon if I waited a few miles. Then suddenly I was in Washington, and the price went up forty cents a gallon.

Oregon was a little cheaper, but they have a peculiar rule: you aren’t allowed to pump your own fuel. It’s not a Back to the Future deal; you won’t get your windshield washed or oil checked, you are simply forbidden from operating the pump. This means you have to wait for an attendant, who in a big station may be handling a dozen pumps. Nobody I asked could explain why the State mandates this, only that it had been that way for a long time.

The final surprise came in California, where the price of diesel fuel increase a full dollar a gallon. I suppose I should have expected it, since everything is more expensive here. My tip for travelers is you might want to check here on your phone as you approach state borders to help you time your gas purchases. I know I will from now on.

Klamath, Yurok Reservation

Fleeing a cold front that had gripped Crater Lake, I wanted to get as far South as I could. That put me in Klamath, California around supper time. I found a convenient place to stop at Golden Bear RV Park just off US 101.  It was on the Northern bank of the Klamath River, just upstream from where the river spills into the Pacific. It’s part of the Yurok Tribe’s Rancheria, and a pretty spot for an overnight stop.

Prairie Creek Redwoods

I was excited to make it down to Fortuna, but there were a few stops along the way that I just had to make. The first was a short walk among the big trees. The redwood parks consists of a string of tracts along the coast, beginning with Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park just South of Klamath.

I’m not skilled enough as a writer to adequately describe the ambiance of an old growth redwood grove. The enormous trunks of deeply ridged bark that perfume the air with a spicy-sweet aroma, the dappled light that filters down from the canopy three hundred feet above, the soft springy step beneath you on a fern-lined path carpeted by a thousand years of packed redwood needles. And wrapping it all, the quiet. The grove blocks out the clamoring modern world, and in that protected cloak of silence you hear nothing but the vibrations of small insects, the rustle of a bird high above, the chuckle of water stumbling over the smooth stones in the nearby creek.

Come visit the big trees.
The experience will change you, if only in some small way.

Patricks Point State Park

The California State Park system is a microcosm of the State as a whole. Vast natural resources, managed with gross inefficiency. The parks are more expensive to visit and offer fewer amenities to campers than most other states do. But in the end, the sheer natural splendor of the land itself overcomes these human shortcomings. Patricks Point was a frequent destination during my first RV camping experiences with my grandparents, so I felt compelled to visit again.

The campsites here are small and offer no hookups so I had ruled out an overnight stay, but I decided to risk a day visit with my 30 foot trailer in tow. It was a squeeze, but I managed to make a place to park near the trailhead to Agate Beach. The trail descends steeply down the bluff, ending in a rough jumble of rocks and driftwood that is often rearranged by the surf during big storms. I can remember spending hours walking this beach looking for agates as a kid. Collecting them was a particular favorite activity of my Aunt Betsy – she must have had a hundred pounds of rocks saved when she died. I wonder whatever happened to them? I stacked a few stones in her memory and thought about her while I rested on a log and watched the seagulls pick over bits of crab shell.

Trinidad Head & Arcata

Continuing South along US 101, I made a quick stop around Trinidad Head to check out a beach of true sand, then on to the college town of Arcata.

Along the way you pass Humboldt’s commercial airport, California Redwood Coast – Humboldt County Airport .  It’s actually located in McKinleyville, but everyone refers to it as the Arcata airport. Flying in here is always an adventure. The facility was built in WWII as a test site for experimental defogging equipment. The reason they chose the spot is because it is perpetually fogged in.

Defogging tech didn’t turn out to be very practical, but improvements in radar and instrumentation led the airport to be reworked for civilian use, even though more often than not pilots have to make blind landings. I have memories of plunging out of the sky into a fog bank in the incredibly noisy, shaking, Brazilian turboprops American Eagle use to run into Arcata, emerging from the fog less than a hundred feet before the wheels touched the runway. The flight was so rough we’d usually fly into San Jose and make the day-long drive up to Humboldt.

Legacy

My final stop of the day was at the Humboldt Area Foundation (HAF) near Arcata. The purpose for visiting was to chat with someone about the endowment my Aunt had set up. The Foundation administers a number of privately funded scholarships, and when Aunt Betsy died she left the bulk of her estate to finance a scholarship as a memorial to her parents, Ted & Betty Lippert. To be eligible, students must attend a church, graduate from Fortuna High, and pursue a degree in education.

Applicants have to submit an essay on the life of my grandparents, and it was my hope that I would be able to read some of these. I reasoned that motivated college students might have dug up some interesting facts about my mother’s family history. Unfortunately, this was not the case. It seems that it today’s age of Intenet-centric research, there wasn’t much information online about my pre-Internet grandparents who died in 1992.  All the applicants had to work with were obituaries and a short bio provided by Betsy. While I didn’t learn anything new about family history, I did spend a couple of enjoyable hours chatting with Cassandra at HAF. I promised her that I would send her some anecdotal background on my grandparents for the students to work with in the future.

Next time:  Home again in Fortuna, California!