Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The Great American West Trip - Day Nine

Today marks the official last leg of the trip. We were up early and were driving by 7:30 AM, nothing was going to stop us from reaching Oregon by nightfall. Driving north on 101 we drove through San Fran yet again, and this time had the privilege of driving over the Golden Gate Bridge…for free. Turns out you only have to pay when you enter into the city of San Fran, but exiting is as free as sunshine. We of course had to stop and take a few more pictures of the majestic bridge, especially since the weather was much better than our previous day in the city. Tiffany picked some fresh lavender from around the area, and we were on our way yet again. Tiffany was in the driver seat yet again, so I got to get a few precious moment of sleep that I always felt deprived of. It was hard to stay sleep though once we got into the beautiful hills that lead to the infamous redwood forests. We decided to stop at a little logging town before hitting the redwoods for some lunch and found ourselves in the diner with the best burgers in the county as stated by the cook. I thought that statement to be pretty funny because there were probably only three restaurants in the county, and out of those three they were probably the only ones that had fifteen burger options on their menu. The guy did hook us up on the food though, I did not even try and finish the meal.
Before long, we were on our way again and the next stop were the redwood forests. Having seen these majestic trees once before with my mother a few months back, I was more the tour guide for Tiffany, but they still were breathtaking. We stopped at the Redwood Visitor Center for a quick learning session and then headed to one of the more famous hiking trails called Founders Grove. For those that do not know, the Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, and this Grove had some of the tallest out of all the Redwoods, so it was cool walking under these giants. We walked through and over some of the toppled giants, and learned how the forest was a giant recycling center that kept the forest continuously regenerating itself. Tiffany showed me some of the more tasty plants that grew in forests, and I actually enjoyed eating the tasty little plants growing on the ground. Most of them had the kind of sour taste associated with sour candy, but in a good way. From the Redwoods we continued up 101 and looked for any road that would take us east to I-5. This is where everything turned terrible.
We quickly learned why there were so few roads leading east from the coast to I-5 throughout Northern California, and that was because there is a mountain range between the two. But we hopped on route 36 anyways and headed east. On the map this road looked relatively straight, but in reality we realized it looked straight because there were just too many twists and turns for the map designer to sketch out. We went from 2000 ft about sea level to like 6000 ft about five times in two hours, and barely made it halfway to I-5. We finally ran into one of the towns that were listed on the map, and stopped for some gas. You could tell this town was not for us when the door to the shop read “Please Do Not Bring Guns Inside Store,” so we kept moving. There was a road labeled A16, I will never forget this name, that seemed to take a more direct route to I-5 than the current route 36 that we were on, so I decided to try our luck on that road. I swear that this is the most dangerous road that I have ever driven on, and I have driven some very dangerous roads in many countries. Terrible sign number one, we did not see a single car for a good two hours while we were driving this road. Number two, there were no guardrails the entire way, which would not be a problem, except there was a straight drop of a few hundred feet down a mountain face if you drove off the road. Third, the only street signs that we saw the entire time, was a sign that said ‘rough road’, ‘beware of falling rocks’, and ‘oxen crossing.’ It quickly became apparent that the A in A16 stood for agricultural, and this was an access road designed for people tending farms and livestock living in the mountains. So we crawled along this road at about twenty miles an hour for quite a while, in the dark, while Tiffany prayed quietly in her seat. We pulled our darkness test one more time because this was a chance to see the stars as God meant for them to be seen, uninterrupted by the lights of the city or with the noises of normal life. Somehow the stars didn’t soothe my nerves much, so we kept going, and eventually we passed another car and then another, which signaled our return to civilization. A few minutes later we caught I-5 and were back on track to reaching Portland, just a few hours late. It was 8PM when we got back to the highway and we were just over 400 miles away from Portland, so it was speeding time yet again.
The last three hours of the ride were completed in some of the densest fog that I had ever seen, but after enduring that terrible mountainous road, fog didn’t represent that serious of an obstacle. Proceeding with caution yet haste, we pressed on to Portland and arrived at about 1 AM. We got home and immediately cracked open a bottle of wine that I had been planning on bringing home (since my car crapped out, all the stuff I planned on packing in my car had to be shipped or thrown away) and got to drinking. We drank to celebrate surviving our ordeal and also to take away the soberness that inevitably comes when an adventure is completed.
Going on this trip with someone that I cared about really brought me closer to that person and I will always be thankful for that experience. There are not many people that I could have spent 216 consecutive hours with and survived with our relationship intact. It was an amazing experience, both for the things we saw and for the person I shared it with. We planned a trip that would last seven days and two thousand miles, but nine days and four thousand three hundred and twelve miles later, we returned home with a few lifelong memories. I wouldn’t change a single thing if I had a chance. All in all, it was a perfect road trip.

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