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California coast trip, Day 10: End of a journey, a look back at discoveries en route

What began New Year’s morning in the muck of the Tia Juana River ended at noon on Jan. 10, just a tad north of Smith River, at the California-Oregon border. The day was sunny and cold, and my little celebration was marred slightly by flashing red lights and a speeding ticket (65 mph in a 55 mph zone, mea culpa), written one mile shy of the border by the cheeriest cop I’ve ever encountered.

“You were glad to be done with that winding coast road. And it’s a beautiful day,” he said, affirming my excuses. (And the state needs the revenue, I said to myself only.)

It took me 10 days and nine nights to cover the waterfront– that is, to drive 1,100 or so miles of California coastline. I averaged about four hours a day on the road, leaving time (but not enough, of course) for small detours and discoveries. Then, having crossed into Oregon, I dropped off the rental car, caught a southbound flight and re-spooled all those driving miles in less than three hours. Now, to tally the findings and expenses.

Four tanks of gas.

Three memory cards full of photos.

Lodgings that were less than half full: all of them.

Worst weather: 90 minutes of pea-soup fog along the coastal bluffs and farmland north of Bodega Bay.

Most affordable hotel room: $59 before taxes at the Inn at Morro Bay. (Yes, I could have paid less, but every hotel and B&B on this trip was right on the water, with no road between my room and the sand or mud or rocks.)

Priciest room: $269 at the Beach House in Hermosa Beach. (Yes, I could have paid more for fancier lodgings, especially in Orange and Los Angeles counties. But I didn’t want to.)

Family-friendliest lodgings: Paradise Point in San Diego, the first night, and the Lost Whale Bed and Breakfast in Trinidad, the last night. (Although my own family was only available for product-testing for the first three nights.)

Costliest gas: $3 a gallon in Leggett.

Costliest coffee: $4 for 12 ounces at Nepenthe in Big Sur.

Coolest building: The just-renovated Timber Cove Inn, which is a woodsy, modernist, quasi-Asian 55-room retreat on a rocky point north of Jenner, in Sonoma County.

Loneliest meal: an early dinner at the Samoa Cookhouse, an old lumberjack’s canteen near Eureka: 97 empty seats and me.

Best sunrise: On Black Hill, a short hike from the Inn at Morro Bay.

Best meal: It’s a tie, between the Parkside Cafe in Stinson Beach (Marin County) and Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino.

Best shellfish in a recurring role: the abalone, whose oval iridescent shells turned up all along the way, likely friendly nudges from Triton himself: on a menu in Morro Bay, in the cemetery at Carmel, on picnic tables in Trinidad, and more.

Places that cried out for more time: Just about all of them. Beach, rocks, lagoons, bluffs — there’s just no way to get bored with all the ways the Earth meets the sea. The perfect way to do this trip, I think, would be two or three nights at each stop. And an electric car.

Until then, however, I’m still pulling together a fuller report on this journey. For more, especially on people and lodgings, watch this space.

— Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Top photo: The Battery Point Lighthouse in Crescent City ought to be the end of California, but it's another 15 or 20 miles before you get to the state line.]

[Middle photo: Paul Bunyan (about 50 feet high) and his blue ox, Babe, are part of the roadside kitsch at Trees of Mystery in Klamath.]

[Bottom photo: Now here's the border, just north of Smith River, and the shadow of your faithful correspondent. When do we start the Oregon drive?]

Photos: Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 1:43 pm by Susan Derby and is filed under California, Family & Kids, Northern California. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.