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California Road Trip

In the summer of 2018 I took my daughter on a 9-day road trip through California. Here is our little story.

Day 6

Last night I slept well. I had brought some ear plugs so any noise would be canceled out. Yes, even leaves falling on the tent will wake me up. Not this night though. We broke down our tent at around 8:30am and hit the road again. First we stopped at a wooden pedestrian bridge which was only less than 5 minutes away.

When I parked the car Katie asked if she could stay in the car and play on the iPad. No. Way. It was another beautiful overcast day - with a little bit of drizzle - a few steps from the ocean (and an interesting Bridge that went over a river flowing into the ocean). All grouchy she stepped out. There were geese in the river. I walked to the bridge and took some pictures. There were steep cliffs on the far side of the river and beach sand on this side. I was walking where the sand was lower, almost level with the river when it got very mushy when I stepped on it. Quicksand! Or, at least it seemed to be a mild version of it. Katie came to check it out too. "Look daddy, there are dog prints here and they stop there". "That's because it's quicksand and the dog is under it right there", I said. "Stop it daddy!”, she replied.

We facetimed Marie as it was one of the rare places with reception. "Where are you going to have breakfast?" she asked Katie. "Daddy wants to go Denny's". Well, it was right on our route back to Glass Beach where Katie wanted to collect some more sea glass. So we did. The coffee was not great as expected. Katie wanted a parfait but that was not available. I told her that the plan now was as follows: "1. Go to Glass Beach; 2. Get gas for the car; 3. Go to Starbucks for a parfait; 4. Leave for a hotel/motel/campground and stop anywhere at something interesting on the way".

So back to Glass Beach. While she was collecting, I tried to find lodging near Bodega Bay for the coming night but there was no reception. I noticed a spoon sticking out of a big rock and realized that was not a rock, and most of the "rock" around us was not rock. This must have been an old dump a long time ago, hence the sea glass.

After we were done here I gassed up the car and headed to the only Starbucks in a 1000 or so mile radius. I bought a parfait for Katie and for myself a latte. While we were sitting down I tried to find a place to sleep. All lodging around Bodega Bay was either not available or a minimum two night stay or $2000 per night with 3 night minimum (whereas I was kidding with the 1000 mile, not so with this one). Hmmm, I chose a campground on Google Maps and hoped for the best. It was a 2.5 hour drive. I put the GoPro on the windshield again to get some recordings of the drive.

Our first stop was at the Point Arena Lighthouse. I got some shots from a distance with two different lenses. It was a beautiful coast line which I also wanted in the shots. We walked to it andlooked around. I didn't feel like going to the top of the tower which was a possibility. Fortunately Katie didn't want to either.

Around 2pm we felt it was time for lunch and I pulled over to look for something. Only 1 mile ahead was Black Point Grill at Sea Ranch Lodge and we went for it. Beautiful photos of local scenery decorated the walls. The view from the restaurant was also amazing and I spotted a sea lion in the ocean. The campground was still a little over an hour away.

After 20 minutes or so of driving I thought we could probably already look for a place to stay. It would only add 45 minutes to our drive tomorrow. The next day I wanted to make it to Monterey on time to go to the Aquarium. We approached a campground. "Full", a sign told us. Another campground. Also full. The next one, also full. Then we reached Timber Lodge. Built on the cliffs with magnificent views I was afraid it was either full too or too expensive. "What shall we put our dollar limit on, Katie?"  "That's your call, daddy." Oh yes it is so I picked an almost random number of $300 before we walked up to the reception. "We have only one room left with bunk beds and it's $399 before taxes." the lady said. "Hmm, we just put our limit at $300" I told her. "Let me talk to the manager and see what we can do". She came back after 5 minutes and said they could offer it for $330. "Thank you but no thank you, that's still too much". I said. Then she said that a place called "Fort Ross Lodge" is a mile further down the road and after that nothing for miles.

We found it easily and entered the reception building. "Do you still have availability for one night and if so how much is it?" I asked. "We have one room left and it is $240", the guy replied. "We'll take it", I said. I felt so lucky. According to Priceline there were motels available in Santa Rosa but I didn't want to go that far from our path. The lodge turned out to consist of cozy cabins lookingout over the ocean with a hot tub.

I was thinking what to do for dinner later. The receptionist had mentioned that we could barbecue and that there is a little shop across the street which closes at 6pm. It was 4 now. Or, he said, the lodge one mile north of here (the one we came from earlier) has a restaurant. I thought we would go to the restaurant because we didn't have charcoal. Katie and I played soccer behind our cabin in the big open field.

I was ready to go to the store across the street after I was downloading some videos from my GoPro onto my iPhone when Katie said "Why does this clock here say it's 6:10?" And was holding her hand in front of it. I laughed and said "You heard what the receptionist had said, didn't you!" Then she laughed and said "I pay attention when you don't expect it, daddy". We went to the store and saw that the lodge offered charcoal so I changed my plan. "Let's barbecue at the cabin so we don't have to drive anymore". "I'm all for it!" Katie said. We also bought some cereal and milk so we could also have breakfast at the cabin the next morning.

It took some time to get the barbecue going, but in the end it all worked and we had a good self-made meal. I told Katie we would go to sleep early so we could leave on time to go to Monterey.