Fortuna, California

It was a dark and stormy night before we left Winchester Bay, Oregon, to head south yesterday. We were staying in a private RV park this time around, but we've stayed at the county park across the way. There's a reason the county park is named "Windy Cove." Sheesh. It made sleeping difficult being pelted by heavy rains and occasional big gusts of wind that rocked the trailer. It was just as well we only planned for one night there.

The kitties were completely settled in yesterday morning, getting comfortable in their window hammocks.

We really hated to disturb Sadie, she was looking so peaceful.

We got off around 9:30 a.m. yesterday morning. Aside from the wind at the campground, it was smooth sailing.

Had we not left home when we did, it would have looked like this at our house. This image was taken by the neighbor just below our house.

It might not look like a lot of snow to those of you who live with snow all winter, but it would have been difficult to tow our fifth wheel up the steep hill of our driveway to the main public road above.

At the valley floor, Erik and Mae sent us this one from their back yard.

Okay, so heading south...when one travels this section of the Oregon coast highway, one passes by Oregon's cranberry bogs. The cranberries have been harvested now. In any case, I couldn't get a good picture as we sped by. I found this image on Creative Commons, taken by another photographer.

(image credit: "Cranberry Bog, north of Bandon" by tmvogel is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

As we approached North Bend, we crossed the impressive Conde McCullough Memorial Bridge.

It's a cantilever bridge that spans the Coos Bay on U.S. Route 101 near North Bend, Oregon. When completed in 1936 it was named the North Bend Bridge. In 1947 it was renamed in honor of Conde B. McCullough who died May 5, 1946. This and 10 other major bridges on the Oregon Coast Highway were designed under his supervision. It replaced ferries that had formerly crossed the bay. The bridge is outstanding for its attention to form and detail, and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its design and cultural and economic importance. And if, like me, you don't know what it means to be a "cantilever bridge," you can read all about it right here. And I'll just say that I read all about it, and I still don't understand it.

We encountered the first snow just south of Coos Bay. 

It got worse as we drove along, and we were in and out of it several times on our journey south.

I wish the weather had been better because this portion of the Oregon/California coastline is stunningly beautiful. Sadly, the pictures I'm about to show you are mainly shades of gray. For a good part of the day I was shooting through a rain-speckled windshield, and so the pictures are really terrible. Still, I'm hoping you'll enjoy seeing what we saw. 

It was an angry ocean, for sure.

The image below gives me an opportunity to tell you that, in Oregon, if there are no signs posted that prohibit overnight camping, anyone can just pull off to the side of the road and sleep for free. You can see one such camper there at the foot of that big sea stack.

After about an hour and a half, we crossed the border into California, where the weather was not even a smidge better than it was in Oregon.

It was nice to drive among the redwoods. Again, these are terrible pictures, but use those street signs for scale. These are some big effing trees.

We stopped here at Wilson Creek Beach. It's a beautiful beach on the Northern California coast. Maybe on another trip, I'll be able to show it to you on a sunny day. (You can also see better pictures at that link I gave you.) Looking north, it looked like this:

Here's a pano of the whole beach, and that might give you a better idea.

Continuing on, we encountered the most snow as we passed through the Redwood State and National parks.

We were also concerned about big wind gusts in places like the one pictured below. Fortunately, wind was never a problem.

And we made it to Fortuna without incident. We're here for the next two nights for a little R&R after such a hectic week getting ready to leave. We want to make a quick trip to the grocery store. I realized I'm missing some pantry items, I usually keep on hand. Also, when I registered at the RV park office, they handed me a sheet listing some local businesses. And what to my wondering eyes should appear?

It's less than two miles from here! It's almost as if it were meant to be, isn't it? Well. Let's just say we don't ignore these kinds of messages from the Universe.

As for the kitties...they are snug. I'm always marveling at what good travelers they are. This morning, they are demonstrating their function as kitty bookends.

Mike remarked that they live in three universes: home, the fifth wheel, and the truck camper. They have their own routines and territories marked out in each space. Just tell them where we are today, and they're good to go.

So that's all I have for you. We may stay home, or we may go out and run those couple of errands: groceries and fabric. Oh yes, and we need to fill our propane bottles. Not sure what we'll do yet. It's raining as I'm writing this. I'm glad we're south of the snow, but it would be nice to see some sunshine too. Each year, I have to remind myself that it is winter all over the northern hemisphere. We can run, but we cannot hide.