USA 2016 - Day 45

Left San Francisco in about 16 degrees C and I doubt it ever got over about 19 degrees C. San Francisco, at least the central part of it is quite a beautiful city. Very old well maintained buildings give the place a flavour we have not seen elsewhere. Even the lesser maintained buildings seem to look OK amongst their neighbours.

We headed out over the Golden Gate Bridge and for once it was not shrouded in fog. North bound for Mendocino and leaving the main highway after about 140 klms, we travelled through wine country with lots of small wine producers with substantial vineyards and cellar doors along the way. Just as well we have no spare space, we may have never even got to Mendocino.

From then on, that was almost the last we saw of straight roads for the rest of the day. Initially travelling through general coastal type wooded hills we then moved into the redwood forests, particularly the Navarro River State Forest. This was a great ride though seemingly never ending very tight corners. The bad side was the road was damp as a lot of this road would never see the sun and the road had a large build-up of redwood needles outside of car wheel tracks. Not much scope for playing.

Into Mendocino for fuel and a look around. I thought this was a bigger place than what it turned out to be but seemed a nice little town. Most expensive fuel we have come across the whole trip. Some strange architecture in town where the houses have these turrets built into or separate to the house. Don't know what they would be for but looked like they were so the owner could see over the neighbour's and the trees to get glimpses of the ocean. Then I spotted another with a water tank on to so that meant continuing the guessing as to the real reason for their existence.

From Mendocino we continued on through Fort Bragg to Leggett travelling the tight winding forest roads again until coming back onto the highway we had started out on early this morning.

Before entering the highway we detoured to see the Chandelier Drive Thru Tree, so called because of a big hole cut through the base of the tree back in 1937 and the enormous branches balanced on either side of the trunk. These branches are the size of small trees and begin about a hundred feet up the trunk.

Back on the highway with more sweeping then tight curves we headed for Eureka for tonight's stop. Three nights to go before we are back in Canada.