Day 16: Driving Down the 101 (Part 1)

Throughout my recent travels I've started to become a bit of a campground aficionado. Just by hearing the name of the place or seeing a highway sign, I can usually tell if it's worth stopping or not. For example, anything with "RV Park" in the title is a trailer park that has a few extra spots open. Family campgrounds (or "Kampgrounds" - which target either Germans or poorly educated schoolchildren) usually have a pool and arcade. State parks often have pay showers and limited amenities, but are very well maintained.

During these travels I've also noticed that the setting of the sun brings an onslaught of slightly disturbing sounds. These sounds are very distinctive and fall into a couple buckets:

• The fighting couple (as previously seen on COPS)
  
• The drunk 20 something cross country bicyclists
  
• The drunk 50 somethings celebrating the one week each year when they stay up after 9pm
  
• Kids - crying, screaming, making gun sounds, teasing, etc
  
• The over amorous couple

Now, most of those I can tolerate and drown out with my iPod. The over amorous couple is probably the most disturbing since I usually know what they look like, and such hideous beasts should never be allowed to take part in activities that may result in even uglier offspring (except for myself of course).

Luckily, the Emerald Forest campground had four of the five groups and provided the added benefit of situating them in sites immediately adjacent to mine. This resulted in a real life Venn diagram centered around my campsite. Luckily, with a WiFi connection, YouTube and headphones I was able to get to coax myself to sleep.

Up until this point, the day was much better than the combination of screaming children, drunken foreigners and mating mutants (reminding me that, yes, I am still very single) to which I fell asleep.

After a long, dark drive through the hills of Oregon the previous evening, I had ended up at Honeyman State Park, which is in an area known for its' sand dunes. Most people attack these dunes with four wheelers or dirt bike, but I decided to take to the sand by foot. A word of warning - this is probably the most intense workout I've ever had. For every foot and a half that you step forward you slide back a foot and into the sand another 6 inches. This path took me over 20 minutes to create, but only about 30 seconds to go down the other side of the hill.




Of course, such effort usually leads to a great reward. The image of trees springing from the dunes leads to a combination of awe and confusion that images can't capture (but I'll try to show you anyway).

This inspired me to get artsy and stage some candid photos, which I've titled "Contemplation in Yellow". This is part of my "Chad is a Tool" line which will be available at finer drug and convenience stores everywhere in time for Christmas.


After washing the sand from my mouth, hair, shoes, crevices, etc, I hopped in my car for a quick 11 hour drive to Yosemite. Unfortunately, the wildfires there have intensified, and I make it a point not to visit places where there is a decent chance of burning to death. Instead, I altered my course for a rambling 2 day drive down the historic route 101. This is a hair pinned path down the California coast that dwarfs you by redwoods on one side while allowing you to see the ocean 500 feet below you on the other.

Overall - a nice, relaxed day of driving, stopping and picture taking.

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I'm bummed that I missed Yosemite and the hiking that it offers, but Redwood National Park was a great drive with amazing views. Luckily there were plenty of cozy places to pull over and contemplate the day...


Next - Route 101 - Day 2