Pacific Coast, California, Spring 2022

The drive along the Pacific coast is hard to beat for scenic beauty. Every twist and turn of Highway 101 opens onto another vista of rocky cliffs dropping down to meet blue-green waves and foamy surf.

Add spring flowers and towering redwoods to the mix, and it’s unbelievably stunning.

Last year, this was some of our most memorable scenery and we were looking forward to a repeat visit with more time to explore the redwood forests.

We were a bit surprised by the weather. A sunny day can quickly go south, bringing wind, rain, and chilly temperatures. Apparently, last year’s weather was extra mild and this year’s was chillier than usual. So, 2022 was a learning curve year for us in late April and early May.

Our pop-up screen room doesn’t do very well in high winds, and rain puts a damper on long hikes, so we spent more time than usual inside the van. A solid week of rainy days – living in our perfect little camper – is a test of patience that would make anyone grumpy. Rain turns woodland campsites into a mucky mess. And, after a first day of romantic drizzle, rain in the woods is just plain gloomy.

On at least one occasion, we packed up and moved on down the road ahead of schedule. To offset a string of rainy days, we often will go into the nearest town and windowshop or hang out. It’s a good excuse for finding a pub for a hot meal and a local beer or a winery with new wines to sample.

Looking back at our photos, it’s clear that we made the best of the good weather, and when the weather cooperates, it’s glorious. Rain also makes for forest walks carpeted with wildflowers and very full mountain streams.

The, normally brown by now, hills away from the coast are still a fuzzy, velvety green. Mosses and grasses are early spring green. So, the trick is to figure out how to enjoy the surprises and keep moving forward. Here are some of the highights from our California trek:

Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo

Our visit to Morro Bay State Park held a wonderful serendipity. We bumped into Marco and Angeliek, the couple from the Netherlands we’d met at Lake Havasu. We had taken routes in opposite directions, yet ended up at the same campground, right next to each other! What a crazy coincidence. They’re cheerful energetic travelers and such fun to be with. Perhaps we might camp together on a future trip? It was harder to say good-bye this time, but seeing them was a fun start to our trip up the coast. At their suggestion, the next day we dined at the Marina Cafe, a quick walk across the street from the campground. It was a delicious meal, topped off by a sunset over boats in the marina.

We took a short drive to visit the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden. This garden is designed to educate. We had fun exploring the children’s garden, walking the trails and looking at themed garden areas.

We watched a flock of hummingbirds buzzing around an Australian Bottlebrush plant. (Calothamnus quadrifidus) These little jet pilots are drawn to the red flowers. But, boy, are they hard to capture in motion with a slow camera phone.

San Simeon and Cambria

Moving up the coast, we camped at San Simeon State Park. It’s not far from Hearst Castle, which unfortunately we weren’t able to visit. After being closed for Covid last year, the road leading up to the Castle was still closed for another week or two for construction. Put it on the list for next time! The ocean was a short walk from our sunny hilltop campsite.

This campground was also our initiation training for gusty winds off the ocean. This called for lots of guy wires and stakes to keep our pop-up screen tent from leaving town without us.

We spent a chilly afternoon watching elephant seals at the vista point a few miles north of San Simeon.

The seals haul themselves out of the ocean and sleep on the beach for hours and hours. The long stretch of beach was packed with hundreds of snoozing seals – not moving very much.

Once in awhile, there’s a bit of action to flip some sand, scratch an itch, or squawk at a neighbor, but most of the time, it’s hard to be certain they’re still breathing.

We drove a little south from our campground and had lunch in Cambria, a smallish, upscale town with interesting shops and galleries. A local fellow suggested that we take a hike at the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, which we did and enjoyed very much.

There are dozens of trails through the property, all maintained by volunteers. We walked the Bluff Trail and our timing was right to see fields of ice plants in bloom.

The Ranch has an inspiring history of public and private collaboration to protect one of the few remaining unspoiled public spaces on the California coast. Today, the non-profit Friends of Fiscalini Ranch Preserve maintains the more than 400 acre Preserve. The Friends staff and volunteers also fundraise and host educational programs and events.

Along with clever shops run by independents, flowers are a big part of the charm of Cambria. There are window boxes and planters filled with blooming flowers, and the restaurants and boutique hotels all have sweet little gardens.

Echium, with its dramatically large flower spikes, blooms everywhere. It grows like a weed, thriving in the well-drained, sandy soils of California. It climbs up hillsides, pops up in vacant lots, and is all along the oceanfront. And the vibrant color is a stand-out.

Monterey and Carmel

We stayed at Saddle Mountain Ranch campground in Carmel Valley, where we had reserved a non-electric tent site, rather than a full hook-up. Glad we did. The electric sites for big rigs was a cramped parking lot, and it looked pretty boring. To reach our site from the campground office, we drove a twisty road up the hill, and then we shoehorned the van into our cliffside campsite.

These folks have made the most out of a steep hillside property! The view of the valley was lovely from our perch and we got some good exercise hiking down (and then back up the hill) to reach the bath house.

We used the campground as a stepping off point for visiting Monterey and Carmel. Driving along the Ocean Drive was a tourist’s treat. Lots of houses with unique designs, interesting landscaping, (pines and palm trees together!) and fantastic ocean views. We Googled a cute property with a For Sale sign, and quickly confirmed that a small cottage for two and a half million dollars might be a little out of our range. Well, you can always windowshop.

In Perkins Park, in Pacific Grove at the tip of the Monterey Peninsula, we walked the seaside path they call “the pink magic carpet.” The pink flowers belong to succulents in the ice plant family, Drosanthemum floribundum.

Hayes Perkins, a bit of an eccentric who lived in a cottage on the cliffs, installed the first of these plants in the 1940s, to replace the poison ivy that covered the cliffs. Today, the planting is nearly a mile long and quite a showstopper when in bloom. Volunteers keep adding to Perkins’ original planting and come out on a regular basis to care for the garden.

Castro Valley

Next, we camped at Anthony Chabot Regional Park, near Oakland, thinking that we might venture into San Francisco to see the sights.

In the end, the weather was so nice that we stayed close to the park and enjoyed a few days of good hiking weather.

Anthony Chabot is a large regional park. We spent the afternoon walking a streamside trail with redwoods.

The park is home to lots of wild turkeys and we saw a number who visited daily. This is a lovely park, and we’d like to stay here again.

Redwoods and More Redwoods…and Rain

We made a return visit to the Anderson Valley to camp at Hendy Woods State Park in the redwoods.

This is a terrific park that works best for rigs our size and tenters. You see many more tenters here than on the East coast. You can pick up hiking trails right from the campground. The trails aren’t busy and the experience of being among these giant trees is spellbinding.

The campground is near a few small villages. We paid a repeat visit to Scharffenberger Cellars for a tasting of bubblies. Sam, our server, took good care of us and also offered some suggestion for other stops.

So, the next day, we went into Boonville and stopped at Disco Ranch wine bar.

We met Wendy Lamer, the owner, who was friendly and helped us with our selections. It was a such a treat to meet her. She’s a bit of a rock star in the wine world, but she’s down to earth and good humored, as well as whip smart.

We had some delicious smoked salmon nibbles, and then went on down the street to have a yummy lunch at Lauren’s at the Buckthorn.

On another afternoon, we paid a visit to nearby Anderson Valley Brewing Company, also a great stop. Boonville definitely goes into the books as a first class experience.

Traveler’s tips: The Anderson Valley has terrific wineries, breweries and dining experiences, without the crowds, hype, and cost of Napa and Sonoma. Note that many wineries now require a reservation for tastings; check their websites before heading out. Midweek is less crowded and less rushed than weekends.

Avenue of the Giants

This is an amazingly scenic route through old redwoods. Humboldt Redwoods State Park is right on “the Avenue.” We spent a couple nights here at the Burlington campground and had a good time hiking through the redwoods in the chilly drizzle.

The campground is in a second-growth forest. Remains of the first-growth trees, which were probably lost to logging, are surrounded by younger, second-growth trees.

This park contains the very first redwood area saved by the Redwoods League in 1921. Rockefeller Forest includes the largest remaining old-growth forest in the world. It is humbling to wander in these stands of redwoods, some of which can be thousands of years old. Photos only capture a real sense of their immensity when you put a human in the picture.

The redwoods’ roots aren’t deep; they have no tap root, as this photo of a fallen tree’s roots shows. The tree’s roots spread horizontally and interlock with other tree roots, forming a strong network that helps the trees remain standing. Groves of redwoods act as a team to support each other. Interrupting this network of roots creates a risk of trees toppling over.

The Visitor’s Center here is one of the best we’ve seen. Along with the selection of books and prints, nature displays, and dioramas, Kellogg’s travel log is on display inside the visitor’s center. The visitor’s center was remodelled specifically to house the log home.

In 1917, Charles Kellogg, a performer known for his vocal range and skill in singing birdsongs, created a one-log home from a fallen redwood. He mounted it on a Nash truck frame, essentially creating the first RV. He drove it cross country four times, to fairs, vaudeville shows, and exhibitions, giving bird song concerts and making impassioned pleas for people to join a young organization dedicated to saving the redwoods. The organization became the Save the Redwoods League.

On our second day at this campground, we went for a back roads drive. We’d been given a map prepared by the campground, but I misunderstood the distances and elevations involved in the loop we took. We drove for hours and weren’t even halfway around the loop. The road grew more narrow and pot-holed. When it started to snow, we decided it was time to cut our losses and retrace our steps to get back to the campground. Lesson learned: never trust a map that’s “not drawn to scale.”

Redwood National and State Park

Our next stop was at Elk Prairie Campground, near Orick, CA. The meadow near the park entrance was lovely, and yes, there were elk grazing there.

Our campsite was in the woods and was already kind of muddy from recent rains, but we enjoyed a couple days of hiking and exploring trails.

We even drove out to Gold Bluffs Beach, which was gorgeous. If we came another time, I think we’d try to stay there and camp right near the beach.

There was no cell service at our campsite, so we drove into Orick to catch up on emails and to check the weather forecast. When we learned that heavy rains were forecast for our final day, we decided to make an early exit and head to our next stop – Oregon!

The California coast was absolutely stunning, especially the treat of rain-induced, lush greenery and wildflowers. Wandering among the giant redwoods, and looking up to see them touch the sky, will forever be a humbling experience.

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.

Kahlil Gibran