Favorite Highways and FreakOut

Journal Notes and Favorite Highways

Travel always brings lessons … some more weighty than others. In the featherweight category: I really like two-lane roads, especially those that twist through beautiful scenery, especially, especially those beautiful scenic ones with lots of turnouts supposedly put there for slow traffic to use, but actually there to allow me a multitude of photo stops. I don’t like highways with more than four lanes and am terrified by one-lane snail trails with heart-pounding drop-offs.

On my jaunt, I developed special fondness for these highways:

Hwy 128 east from 101 to the coast. This was my first excursion off the beaten path and one of the most varied. Unfortunately, it was late in the day when I chose this direction and offered few photo turnouts, so it definitely deserves another turn.

Hwy 1 north of Fort Bragg. While Big Sur gets all the credit for beauty and drama, my favorite segment of 1 is north of Fort Bragg, where the traffic almost disappears. It wasn’t long before a surprise appeared out of nowhere ... an elephant ... and a Buddha! ...in the middle of a field. (

Hwy 199 - Smith River

This area became my favorite as I crept through it at a snail’s pace. A CalTrans worker told me about Gasquet (locals say GASkey) and a couple of short hikes which turned out to be trip highlights.

Hwy 3 through Scott Valley. A green and peaceful valley surrounded by snow-tipped mountains. Every mile soothed my spirit and the historic town of Etna was unexpectedly charming.

Hwy 36 Red Bluff to Lake Almanor. Stunning and isolated, Hwy 36 winds though land from another time, volcanic and harsh, and strangely beautiful. The miles west of Red Bluff look like a curvy challenge with few services.

Old barn in Gasquet

FreakingOut in Fort Bragg

After a frustrating day of stressful traffic and rejecting an already-reserved but hazardous- looking camping spot, the arrival in Fort Bragg seemed like one assault too many fog and a biting wind which blew in an unexpected FreakOut.

Knowing it would be chilly on the coast, I had stocked up with warm clothes, but the thought of spending a week in a tent fighting cold AND wind undid me. Speed cancelling reservations began while I contemplated what would happen if I just blew off this whole adventure.

Once the reservations were all cancelled, I actually felt better. Freedom to do whatever, cheered me up. Without the restrictions of a PLAN, who knows what the morning might bring?

In the middle of the night, one word woke me: METTLE, something that, at the moment of my meltdown, was significantly lacking. It also brought me a question: What would I miss if I didn’t do this thing I had planned for and intended to do? The morning dawned sunny and relatively warm, I packed my METTLE and set off for what turned out to be a fabulous day including finding a whale of a different color. My one camping night was at MacKerricher State Park, five miles north of Fort Bragg, where my campsite was beautiul and sheltered. Decided to stay two nights to have more time for long walks over dunes and the shoreline, perhaps seeing another character like the crab catcher who was beaching his kayak the night before.

After sleeping well and walking along the shoreline, it was time to make coffee and charge all my electronics. Alas! The equipment bag was missing. Drama. Dismantled the campsite looking for it. Nada ... nothing!

Frustrated, I began packing the car when a ranger appeared and told me I could get what I needed at the Radio Shack in Fort Bragg. So,back to Fort Bragg, where I was starting to feel like a local.

This was turning into a relatively minor setback but I decided to just head on up the coast. Just as I was passing the campground again, it suddenly hit me: that I had put a bunch of stuff into the campsite food storage locker! With a minimum of selfchastisement, one loop through the park reunited me with my lost stuff as well as several things that hadn’t even been missed. Finally, off to Eureka for the planned three night stay … even though, due to my FreakOut, the reservations had been cancelled. Driving up the coast, I thought about what I might have missed if my FreakOut had won: - Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens with its abundance of rhododendrons. - Jughandle State Natural Reserve with its flower dotted and windswept vistas, krummholz vegetation (bent wood forests all a tangle), and pygmy forest. - Van Damne State Park hike though fern canyon and seeing all the perfectly lovely PacificTrilliums. (More: www.JoyceWycoff.com) (More: www.JoyceWycoff.com)