Roadtrip Report: Driving the Redwood Highway

Started by Mdcastle, September 17, 2013, 02:38:13 PM

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Mdcastle

It's been a dream of mine for many years (at least a decade) to drive the Redwood Highway from San Francisco to the redwoods, and I'm now back home.

The route: Various freeways in the Bay Area, The Redwood Highway in it's entirety from the Golden Gate Bridge to Grants Pass and back down with I-5 and I-80.

* California is a roadgeeks dream with cutout shields, button copy galore, and old traffic signals and street lights. I even saw a "California Classic" 12-8-8 w/visors in San Jose.

* I appreciated the signs that were lit, but they do seem to have abandoned lighting the "next three exits" signs- they were either fluorescents that weren't lit or had no lights.

*Bay area drivers seem fast and assertive but extremely polite. I didn't have the same kind of problems I do at home with drivers not letting me in when I needed to change lanes.

*Even my sister, the non-roadgeek, was impressed with the new Bay Bridge at night. I made a video but couldn't upload it over slow hotel Wifi. She couldn't see the miner's spade in the state shield and thought it looked like a Chinese dumpling, and thought all the curve warning signs on Redwood Highway were neat.

*We really liked  the scenery and feel of California. I've never been farther southwest than Las Vegas and my sister hasn't been west of Wyoming.

* Day 1 was fly in, pick up the rental car, and drive over the Bay Bridge to our hotel in Livermore (we stay at Holiday Inn Expresses exclusively, and the one on the Peninsula was too expensive. We drove CA 1 to US 101 through the city because my sister wanted to eat at Mel's Drive-In.

* Day 2 was drive over the San Mateo Bridge, pick up US 101, and head north. We saw Lombard Street and the Tea Garden and the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked the entire bridge before going back to our car and heading north. Spent the night in Windsor.

* Day 3 was Windsor to Eureka. Took a few minutes to stop at the Willits bypass and the arch, managed to get to our hotel quick enough to see dusk settle on the beach and fog rolling in.

* Day 4 was Eureka to Stout Grove and back, also saw the Drury Scenic Parkway.

* Day 5 was "The Longest Day", Eureka to Grants Pass and down back to Walnut Creek. Left at 11 AM and got to our hotel at 12:00 PM. The scenery on US 199 was nice and very different from the coast, and my sister liked seeing Mount Shasta. In Jacksonville we made a side trip to see the Nunan estate from the outside (it's closed and for sale), famous as the model for the computer game "The 7th Guest".

* Day 6 we saw Alcatraz and went to a book signing party for my sister's favorite author- using BART, Streetcar, Streetcar, Cable Car, Light Rail, Light Rail, and BART

* Day 7 the original concept was to go to Six Flags Discover Kingdom, which is why we stayed in Walnut Creek. But I was always ambivalent since it was probably the worst Six Flags park as far as rides, so as much as I like going to amusement parks I felt there was better ways to spend our time, so we went to the Mystery House, and then visited our stepfather's aunt and her daughter in Woodside. We made a side trip to drive through Half Moon Bay even though it was dark, and then went back to our Hotel

* Day 8 was simply driving back to the airport.


hm insulators

That's a beautiful part of California; my brother used to live in Crescent City.
Remember: If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.

I'd rather be a child of the road than a son of a ditch.


At what age do you tell a highway that it's been adopted?



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