Sitting on the porch just missing my banjo and straw…..!
This morning we were sat on the cabin porch, I thought, all I am missing is a banjo and a straw in my mouth, I would fit in perfectly as hillbillies or a red neck!! Especially as we are supposed to be in red neck territory.
As we sat there a car pulled up, a American couple were in the car, the guys rolls down the window and says Sat Naam! We were amazed! He then said Sat Sri Akal and Waheguru! We asked if they wanted to meditate he said they were just passing through and carried on their way. We were left amazed……such a nice pleasant surprise.
Afterwards we had a walk to the Eterrnal Tree House which is across the road from the motel. The base of the giant Redwood has been turned into a room!
We drove north along the Avenue of the Giants to a town called Ferndale population 1400, as soon as we parked up and walked down Main Street, Sangeet and I had the feeling that there was a vegetarian restaurant here……anyway we carried on walking through the town, the Victorian buildings dated back to the late 1800’s the people in the town were very friendly….perhaps because they knew we were tourists and would not stay long!!! We crossed the road and walked back passing a Mexican restaurant which we decided to ignore, then couple of shops from there was a cafe called
‘Lost Coast Cafe’
468 Main Street
Ferndale
CA 95536
Tel: +1 786 5330
it was vegetarian and vegan!! Also it had many gluten free buns and cakes, Sangeet ordered a side salad and lentil soup, I had lentil soup and a grilled tofu sandwich. They tasted fantastic and you could tell they were lovingly made! I also had a scone which was vegan! Please note the feta cheese is made with animal rennet. The owner, Mario came to chat with us. He has been a vegetarian for the last 40 years and this business is in its fourth year. Mario said to us he was 63!! He looked very healthy and young for a chap who is 63.
After a fantastic meal we carried on walking towards some residential houses, we passed a motel which from the front looked very nice, a side view showed it was a fake front?! Anyway, we carried on walking, passing a library where we popped in. Sangeet bought three books totalling $4! and I found free wifi, so we were both happy, we then popped to the grocery for essentials. Funyuns, pretzels, nachos, salsa and bananas. We the bananas were healthy to balance out the chips!
As we are both traveling light we needed to find a laundrette, the closest one is in a town called Rio Dell (15 minutes away from Red Crest) our route from Ferndale took us through Rio Dell, so we thought about checking the times and have a look around the town, it closed at 9pm so will pop back later.
Located along the Eel River in northern California, Humboldt Redwoods State Park contains some of the world’s most majestic ancient redwood groves. The park encompasses over 53,000 acres, including 17,000 acres of old-growth coast redwoods. In 1921 Save the Redwoods League dedicated the first Memorial Grove, Colonel Raynal C. Bolling Memorial Grove, in what is now known as Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Today the park contains a diverse coast redwood ecosystem, which includes Rockefeller Forest, the largest remaining old-growth forest in the world, and the entire Bull Creek watershed.
We decided to drive the 31 mile scenic route called the Avenue of the Giants starting from north and going south wards. WOW! This is an amazing drive. The Redwoods are HUGE, you really need to see this first hand to appreciate how big they are. The Avenue of the Giants runs parallel to route 101. 200 miles north of San Francisco and 100 miles south of the Oregon border. A must see!
We also went to an area in the red woods called Founders Grove where lies the Dyerville Giant (370 ft fallen tree!). The Dyerville Giant was recognised as a “champion” coast redwood as certified by the American Foresters Association until it fell on March 24 1991. Before it fell it was at least 362 feet tall, that is two feet taller then Niagara Falls. It is 17 feet in diameter, 52 feet in circumference and probably weighs 1,000,000 pounds.
The Avenue of the Giants comes to a end (if driving north to south) near a town called Garberville, so instead of driving back up to the laundrette in Rio Dell. We looked for one in this town, as soon as we entered we found it.. Cool! Saves us a drive up. Can you believe the washing, drying and soaps cost us $8!! We are more used to paying hostel prices of $1 for washing drying and free soap! – I am sure Indians own this place with prices so high!
Garberville seems to be full of pot smoking hippies! We popped into a Chinese restaurant but did not like the look of, so walked back to launderette. We met a guy there called Seth, a well travelled guy who last year had been to India and visited the Harimandar sahib and loved it. He gave us some very good information about Cambodia and Laos, also where to get our India tourist visa from. Thanks Seth, much appreciated.
We arrived back at the motel around 21:30 after meeting fantastic people and having great food. O and the sights were awesome!!!
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