California–Oregon Coast

 

We left the Napa Valley area as we totally drained our wine budget for the entire year!  We followed US-101 north to Klamath, California.  For those of you who have not traveled US-101/CA-1, it is a real treat.  The highway goes along the coast of California and Oregon and gives you some spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean.  The downside is that it is mostly a two lane highway with many hills and sharp curves.  So if you get behind a semi or, someone like us towing a trailer, you end up going really slow.  When driving it you need to add additional time as you will only average 40 MPH.  For us, besides the slower driving, it was the horrible gas mileage.  I do not want to know the actual miles per gallon but I am sure on the trip to Klamath and then Seal Rock, it was probably around 6 miles per gallon.  It is all worth it!

So, as I mentioned, we first stopped in Klamath, California.  This is right in the heart of the redwoods.  The Redwood National and State Parks are north and south of the city.  We had a nice time taking the scenic drives through the forests, although US-101 actually goes through a big part of it.  The weather was much cooler as we moved north and the clouds and rain moved in as is the case in coastal northern California and into Oregon.

Here are some pictures from our stop in Klamath.

Redwood forest

  Herd of Elk next to the highway

  Neat lighthouse in Crescent City

From Klamath we continued on US-101 into Seal Rock, Oregon.  It is a small town right on US-101 about half the distance from Klamath to Portland (our next stop).  We found a nice little RV park right next to the ocean. The downside was that it we were very close to US-101 so the road noise was a little loud.  It was not bad at night and views of the ocean made up for the traffic noise.

Here there were great ocean views and beautiful coastal drives. 

  View from our RV

  Oregon coast

  Devil’s Punch Bowl in Otter Rock, Oregon. 

We leave here on Thursday for a two week stay in the Portland area where we will get to visit with our daughter and son-in-law and meet up with our friends the Sherwood’s to do some wine tasting in the Columbia River Gorge area.

Rout:  From Cloverdale, CA we took US-101 north into Klamath, CA and then to Seal Rock, OR.