Monday... 28th? Turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right...

So we were almost in Redding for no real reason, so we decided to go all the way west, for no real reason. Undecided on whether we were shooting for Sacremento or San Franciso next, we did the only logical thing and headed for neither. From Redding we took the 299 to the 3 and down to the 36... What that means in reality is we headed out again on the north California forest and rural roads and headed for the ocean. It was, undeniably, nice and green after the other states... But, as I did point out to my driving partner, it was mostly through parks, which are, as we discovered yesterday, scenic but slow... And indeed, as soon as we started climbing into the trees, progress slowed to half speed, or even one third speed, as we curved back and forth and climbed up and down, up and down... Sounds like fun, and indeed it was, but with 450 miles or so to cover, suddenly time went very slow... And then we hit roadworks with the roads closed for ten or twenty minutes... Not once, not twice, three times... So we looked at this quite a lot...

That's Lake Shasta by the way. Scenic. 

And then there were farms 

And then there were hills. And corners. 

  

Finally we made it to Fortuna, and had a tasty turkey and ham sandwich at the local Cafe... Fortuna like most of the little towns up that was pretty cute, obviously catering to city visitors but with not much else going on. All through the endless forest roads out there we were constantly perplexed by how many Americans somehow live in these remote areas in houses in the trees, and in remote valleys, and in farms with apparently no animals... Whole villages in the forest, with no visible means of support. Goodness knows how they make a living, but apparently they do. 

The 101 south from Fortuna was blessedly wide and straight... Briefly. Before long, it was windier than the roads from the morning. I was just hauling the Challenger left to right to left to right, my copilot remarkably tolerant of my driving which kept me entertained but was too fast to be comfortable on such endlessly steep windy roads. Eventually we found ourselves in Redwood country, and even found the famous drive-through tree, which was cool... No idea how they got old American cars through though...

                  

                                         

Fort Bragg was pretty, and it was in fact nice to be at sea level and see the ocean after being so high up and so far inland for so long... Pointing the car for Sacramento we fought our way through more windy stuff around the side of Clear Lake, another playground, then down into the lush valley of vines and orchards (and enormous golfing resort/casinos) that led to Woodland... Which was yet another nice and seemingly pretty well-off little Cali town, where a motel was easy enough to find and we were finally out of the saddle again.

Another 450 miles covered and a dash of Carls Jr for tea... Philly cheesesteak burger - if you fancy suicide by burger, it is pretty darn good. And the caramel and sea salt shake... Awesome!!! They are officially approved, unlike a bunch of other stuff so far consumed and regretted...