July 4, 2015

Wow!

An amazing day, great roads, spectacular scenery ending with a little adventure and a neat place to stay.  We leave Willits just ahead of the parade and head down 30 miles of perfect twisty pavement through tall Ponderosa pines and redwoods towards the coast. The weather is cool and clear and not much traffic considering it is the 4th of July. We reach the tourist town of Fort Bragg and motor north along miles of rugged coastline. The fog bank is, luckily 5 miles out to sea. The road winds casually along until we head inland. We now enter the majestic redwood forest, complete with all it's "World Famous" tourist spots, the "World Famous" Tree House, the "World Famous" Big Foot Museum, the "World Famous" Drive Thru Tree, the "World Famous" House in a Tree, and on it goes. Having seen the Redwoods only in pictures, we are truly awed by them in person. To be next to a living thing thousands of years old is amazing. The temperature climbs to 100 as we enter the strange town of Garberville. The usual gas stations, diners, shops and more than a few bars and saloons. At the gas station, one local character opens the doors and greets customers while he sings the National Anthem, another long haired, interestingly dressed relic of the 60's paws through the trash cans. A couple more local boys drink beers and smoke cigarettes, while trying to figure out how to fix their flat tire. We move on, somehow missing the Benbow Inn. Art had told us we needed to stop by and check out the lobby. Anyway, we head up into the mountains towards the town of Zenia. The road is less than perfect pavement, but we climb fast and the temp drops a bit into the 90's. The land is open and hilly as the road snakes around. The GPS sends us down a dirt road for 5 miles instead of the shorter way on the pavement, not sure why, but now I know this was an omen of things to come. 30 miles later we arrive at Zenia, hoping for a store and a snack and water. Well, there was a store once, now just a trailer used as a Post Office, and that was closed. Our next destination is Mad River and the road is freshly paved for about 15 miles. We are still up in the mountains as the serpentine road meanders up and down over and around. Since we left Garberville, we've seen maybe a dozen cars. Mad River is barley a town, but they do have a burger stand, beer store and a bar, but the electricity is out. The bar, of course, is still open and we get some water. The next road is about 75 miles long and hopefully brings us to our destination for the night, Willow Creek. The road is one of the most unusual roads I've ever been on, National Forest Hwy 1. It's a one lane paved road that heads up into Six Rivers National Forest. There are no signs whatsoever, no speed limit signs, no 'Sharp Turn Ahead' signs, no campground signs, just the occasional 'No Fireworks'.  To say the road is twisty, snake-like is an understatement, of the 75 miles, there was maybe 1 mile of straight road, we saw 3 cars and 3 motorcycles and 1 guy stopped walking his dog. A good portion of the road follows a ridge with outstanding views, although it was quite hazy, of Mt Shasta to the east and the Pacific to the west.
About 40 miles in the road headed back south and the GPS said we'd missed a turn, and to make a U-Turn. Neither of us remembered seeing any turns, but we reluctantly reversed direction following our electronic navigator. The turn came and was a dirt road. We stopped and re-set the GPS several times, adding the 'Avoid non-paved roads' setting. It added 2 hours to our trip without the dirt road...so off we go down the dirt, 'It's a good road, it must go somewhere', and it even has a name. It's 4:30, and we are ready to be done for the day, 6 miles in on the dirt road and there it is, a washed out bridge with no way around. Back we go, I turn off the friggin GPS, we get back on the paved road and an hour later we are in Willow Creek and find the China Creek Cabins and our bed for the night, needless to say, a welcomed sight.

China Creek Cabins
We arrive at the cabins and are greeted by Lana, the owner. She shows us to our cabin, it is newly refurbished, the AC is on, nice music is playing as we walk in the door, it's beautiful.
As we drove through Willow Creek we passed a pizza place, a diner and the Big Foot restaurant, about 2 miles from the cabin. Neither of us wanted to get on the bike again to go eat. Parked in front of the cabins was a food truck. The truck was run by a family with 2 kids living in a VW microbus. They served organic burgers, crepes and homemade fries. We get some food to go head back to our little cabin, we still have a bottle of wine, the food is excellent, we eat, we drink, we chill.... life is good.

 The Coast

 The Road to Zenia

 The booming town of Zenia

 NF 1

Gourmet Eats