California Road Trip 2016, Part 5

South to Monterrey

After our hasty retreat from Bodega Bay in the driving wind and rain we headed south aiming to get past San Francisco on the way to Big Sur.  Our first stop was the Tomales Bay Oyster Company for a dozen tasty oysters. From there we made a stop to look around Point Reyes Station and pick up a few odds and ends.  We had intended to stop and check out Muir Beach and possibly Muir Woods but the driving wind and rain changed that plan, it wasn’t too appealing to be going for a walk in the pouring rain, so we continued on and made the crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Apparently there is a charge for southbound traffic but to date we’ve been unsuccessful in settling up.  The signs say to proceed as the toll is ‘automated’ which is another way of saying it doesn’t work.  We both made repeated attempts to pay with our phones, I had one success in setting up payment but apparently guessed the wrong time we crossed the bridge so I didn’t get charged.  I tried to set up another wider time frame to no avail, every time I entered my information and submitted it the webpage would blank out my entries and I’d be back to square one.  We finally gave up and we’ll see if they mail me something.  They will probably spend half the fee collecting it from me.  Progress.

(more…)

Continue ReadingCalifornia Road Trip 2016, Part 5

California Road Trip 2016, Part 4

North Coast

We spent a fair bit of time on the Lost Coast and enjoyed it immensely.  After leaving Usal we hit highway 1 and the North Coast and found it packed with just as many curves and spectacular views as we had been enjoying, the big change was we were back on pavement.

North Coast
North Coast

 

(more…)

Continue ReadingCalifornia Road Trip 2016, Part 4

California Road Trip 2016, Part 3

Lost Coast, Continued

We enjoyed a quiet night at Needle Rock.  After sitting around the fire and watching falling stars we called it a night and somewhere between then and the morning a rainstorm passed.  If it needs to rain, night is the perfect time, but I did get to wondering about the steep narrow windy road on the way out.  Before departing we checked out some of the history stored in the visitors museum.  It was quite amazing to see the amount of development from over a hundred years ago in what now appears to be nearly untouched wilderness. Before too long we packed up and headed south and were able to get out of the steep section without issue.  We were told that Usal road going south was closed for the season.  As we understood it Usal Road is even more interesting than some of the other roads we had already traversed and considering the rain we didn’t even check, we just headed inland to highway 101 and south to Leggett where we took highway 1 to the south end of Usal road.  Luckily we had stopped for fuel in Leggett and the attendant described the turnoff from highway 1 to Usal.  We never did see the ‘tiny’ sign he described but the rest of his information was enough to find the road with just barely missing it on our first pass.  From there we made our way north on Usal road for the few miles the road was open to Usal campground.

Usal Overlook
Usal Overlook

(more…)

Continue ReadingCalifornia Road Trip 2016, Part 3