Red Roads State Pages
Northern California (as delineated by AAA Tour Book) See more places on the Southern California page.
Death
Valley
Death
Valley National Park
Oroville
Oroville
Dam/Lake Oroville State Recreation Area
Redwood Country
-
Overview of our visit to Redwood Country
Sacramento
California
State Railroad Museum
Yosemite National Park
Death Valley
Death Valley National Park
Our one-day quick visit to Death Valley National Park was on Saturday, March 8, 2003. From our campsite in Pahrump, Nevada, we entered the park from the east, near Shoshone, California. The road took us through the Amargosa Range of mountains, over the Salisbury Pass (elevation 3315 feet) then through Jubilee Pass (elevation 1290 feet) in the Black Mountains. As we headed north along Death Valley itself, I realized that my mental image of this famous place had been inaccurate since my childhood. For some reason, I had always pictured a huge plain punctuated by a canyon with a desert at the bottom. Boy, was I wrong! This desert is indeed in a valley; there are mountains all around it.
We studied the
Death Valley Salt Pan, believed by many to be the residue of an ancient saline lake. Here we were at about sea level. As we continued to follow the road, we reached Badwater, with an elevation of 282 feet below sea level. This is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere! (Unfortunately, the observation area was closed for renovation, so we didn't get any photos. We really were there though!)
A few miles farther north, we pulled off the main road onto a very rough road that led to the parking lot at the Natural Bridge trailhead. We had remembered to bring along water for the hike, but I wished I had had my hiking boots for surer footing. We set a leisurely pace; it was about seventy degrees, but the sunshine and the uphill grade quickly warmed us up. It was only about a quarter of a mile to
By the time we were back on the main park road, we were very hungry! I'm sorry to say that we passed up several stops along the way to Furnace Creek where we could buy some lunch. After refreshing ourselves with sandwiches, chips, drinks, and ice cream from the general store, we paid a brief visit to the privately-owned borax museum. Then we drove a short distance to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, where Bud bought a National Parks Passport and immediately began his collection of cancellations.
Our final stop of the day was at the
Back to Top
Oroville
Oroville Dam/Lake Oroville State Recreation Area
In April of 2003, we spent a week boondocking at
The father of my childhood friends was a volunteer at the Lake Oroville Visitor Center. At his encouragement, we spent part of an afternoon there. We climbed a 47-foot observation tower for a
Back to Top
Redwood Country
Overview of our visit to Redwood Country
Coast Redwood trees, the world's tallest living things, are native to the Pacific Coast from southern Oregon to central California, extending not more than 50 miles inland. Logging that began in the 1850's depleted many of the forests of these huge old trees. Today, scattered groves have been preserved in parks, several of which we visited. At the Humboldt Redwoods State Park website, you can read some general information about redwood forests.
For our first day in redwood country, we were towing the fifth wheel. This hindered our exploration a little, but we certainly enjoyed what we did see in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Then we spent two nights at Patricks Point State Park. This gave us a whole day to see some of the highlights of Redwoods National and State Parks. We even returned to the campground in time to go to
Back to Top
Humboldt Redwoods State Park
On April 9, 2003, we headed into redwood country from the south, driving along Route 101. About five miles south of Piercy, we stopped briefly at the
Along
Route 101 south of Phillipsville, we came unexpectedly upon the One-Log
House, a
mobile home carved from a single, 32-foot redwood log. The guide books I had
been using were out of date, indicating that the house was in Phillipsville; it
was moved here a few years ago. We gave a donation and walked through the house,
which reminded me of a very similar house we had seen at the Ohio State Fair
several years ago. We ate lunch at the gift shop and headed north
again.
We
found Route 254 (old 101) readily marked as the Avenue of the Giants. It was a
breathtaking drive through these amazing
trees. This
33-mile drive is part of Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California's largest
Redwood state park. It was here, in 1921, that the Save-the-Redwoods
League made its first purchase of redwoods. Since then, more than one
hundred memorial groves have been established within the park with the help of
League funds, expanding the park to over 50,000 acres.
We spent some time at the visitors center near Weott. Here we learned about bird song artist Charles Kellogg. He had the amazing ability to reproduce bird songs by singing the way birds do, not by whistling. He also did other astounding feats with his voice, which had a range of twelve-and-a-half octaves We also saw the Travel Log he made for his performance tours; he raised money for the purchase of redwood trees. You can see pictures of this motorhome and hear samples of his bird songs at the Humboldt Redwoods State Park web site.
Back to Top
Redwood National and State Parks
It had rained during the night before our visit to Redwood National Park. It continued to drizzle off and all most of the day. At the Redwood Information Center on Route 101 near Orick, Bud stamped his National Parks Passport. We walked a little way out on the beach behind the center, puzzled by the dark color of the sand. The ranger we asked explained that it was caused by the minerals washed out of the mountains by the streams that entered the ocean here.
After driving north again on Route 101, we left the highway on Bald Hills Road. We stopped at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove and took the short hike along the loop trail to the 1968 dedication spot. We experienced misty conditions as we walked among the
Returning to the highway, we traveled north again. Soon we entered Prairie Creek State Park by way of the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway. We saw some Roosevelt Elk, the region's most often seen land mammal. At the Big Tree Wayside, we stopped again so we could get up close and personal with the
We turned off the Parkway to travel the Coastal Drive. This was an interesting little road! Along this narrow, mostly-gravel, eight-mile road, we had several great
Back to Top
Sacramento
California State Railroad Museum
On March 31, 2003, we spent the afternoon at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. Although I am not particularly a railroad buff, there were several things about my visit that I really enjoyed. A number of locomotives and railroad cars from the museum's extensive collection were displayed for visitors to tour. I sat in an old Pullman car, drawing on my memories of crossing the country from Washington state to Ohio when I was three years old. There was a docent in the Great Northern Railway post office car to explain how it was used. In the AT&SF dining car, each table was formally set with china and service from a different rail line. During its thirty-one years of service, the
There was one locomotive that created a powerful memory of my visit to the museum, but I can't show you a picture of it or even tell you its name. It was black and it was big! What made it unique was the manner in which it was displayed. This huge engine straddled a long narrow pit which had steps at each end. I have no idea if this arrangement represented an actual situation, such as a method of maintenance. It obviously invited us to go down the steps and walk under the engine lengthwise. J and I did just that! Don't ask me what it looked like under there, though. I wasn't exactly gawking around as I quickly covered the distance under the huge locomotive!
Back to Top
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite Valley
On March 20, 2003, we spent a day visiting the Valley portion of Yosemite National Park. It was off-season, so there were few people in the areas that get so crowded in the summer. Not all services were available, but we found lunch, the Ansel Adams Gallery, and VIEWS! I've added captions to some of our photos so you can learn more about our day by looking at the Photo Album.
Back to Top
Mariposa Grove
Our hike in this grove of Giant Sequoias was an awesome experience! It was only March 25, so the road to the grove parking lot was not open for the season yet. We had to park our truck just inside the south entrance to the park and walk two miles on the Mariposa Grove Road to the parking lot. Once there, we studied the map and headed up the trail. We had not intended to climb all the way to the top of the grove, but each time we reached a named tree, a sign would indicate a short distance to the next one. We eventually made our way to the Fallen Wanona Tunnel Tree, at an elevation of 6,600 feet. This was an increase of 1000 feet from the grove parking lot!
Our whole hiking adventure covered about eight miles (four of them uphill and four of them downhill!) and lasted about seven-and-a-half hours. The amazing thing about it was that we didn't have any food to eat that whole time. Park literature was full of adamant warnings about not packing food into bear country (which is the whole park!) unless special bear-resistant containers were used. We didn't think it would be a problem not to carry food with us because we thought our hike would be only about three hours. We had water, of course, and we drank that. I guess the food deprivation just contributed to the adventure of the day!
This is another time when I'll let the Photo Album show more details of our visit.
Back to Top
