Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Jun 2012: Day 18 – Sonoma to Garberville

Not an exciting day today at all.  The trip from Santa Rosa was not pleasant for Vick – it was bendy roads and it made her feel sick.  We had decided to follow Highway 1 on the coast rather than the more direct, and no doubt quicker route via the 101.  There was very little opportunity to overtake so progress was fairly slow. 

The hood was up for 95% of the trip until we started heading inland close to Garberville when it was really nice.

We did stop off at a hotel near Black Point which looked a bit suspect from the outside but by this time coffee was on the agenda and anywhere would do.  Inside it was fabulous with nice views and a pleasant restaurant.  Good value too.

We also decided to pop to Point Arena Lighthouse which we both thought we had visited before, but when we arrived it cost $7.50 per adult to get in, so we turned around, parked up and I took some photos.  We wanted to go see the place, but not that much.

Mendocino was agreed to be our point for lunch, and we had this romantic memory of a beautiful place where we discovered breakfast burritos 6 years ago.  It seems to have gone downhill a little.  However we did find a nice little place where I had another bowl of clam chowder and Vick had a plate of nachos.

We said goodbye to Highway 1 at Leggett and rejoined the 101.  We decided to miss out the drive through the official “Big Redwood” tree this time, and pressed on for Garberville. As we were heading north, the trees were getting bigger nad biiger, and beautiful densely-packed woodland was everywhere.  It was a very scenic drive, and as the sun started to come through, the dappled sunlight raised our spirits.

We have stayed at Garberville before at the Best Western, and it has improved a lot.  The hotel rooms are clean but very dark (quite common with low budget hotels, probably to hide stuff they don’t want you to see!), but we were invited to a cheese and wine gathering in the early evening organised by the hotel and we met a few very nice Americans.

The pool was supposedly heated, but it wasn’t which annoyed Nige but if you’ve been following this blog you’ll know that this isn’t a problem for Vick.  It was also being used by a lovely young lass who was being taught how to surf by her Dad.  It wasn’t really big enough to do any real swimming so we soaked in the spa for a while instead.

Having visited the cheese and wine do, we didn’t need a meal this evening so we went on a hunt for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.  We found one main outlet at a supermarket but they didn’t stock Strawberry Cheesecake.  After a quick hunt around other potential outlets we had to head back to the supermarket and get a pint of Karamel Sutra, which was good (but not as good as SC).  Stayed in having a typical American night – ice cream and a movie – the Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan, so Vick was well happy!

And an idea was brewing…  More on that in tomorrow’s exciting instalment.

Stats for Day 18: 200 miles, 0 Starbucks coffees (again!), 0 Hollywood celebs spotted, 0 Subway inches consumed, about even on the calories.

Plan for tomorrow is to drive up to Grants Pass.

Follow the whole story here: Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Jun 2012