In early June we took an incredible road trip up the coast to Vancouver. It was something we’ve been wanting to do for some time, as Erinn had never been north of San Francisco and I had never been north of Portland on the West Coast. We finally blocked out some time and hit the road. A fast-paced tour of some pretty amazing places, our only regret was that we didn’t give ourselves more time. Our agenda included stops in San Francisco, Mendocino, Redwoods National Park, Portland, Olympic National Park, Vancouver and Seattle. All in 10 days! It was go, go, go, but every bit of it was great and now we know where to go back for extended stays. Click below to see a travelogue from our journey! It’s a long read, but you can just look at the pictures if you like.
Navarro Beach – Mendocino County, CA
Our first stop was actually San Fran, but it was only for the night of our arrival. The next morning I took meetings with some great advertising agencies, and we were on our way north by noon. From there, we made our way to Mendocino, managing to stop in for a last-minute wine tasting at Balo, a small family-owned vineyard, as we made our way to Navarro Beach for our first night of camping. I had visited this beach a few years ago with my family, but hadn’t been back since. Despite summer being right around the corner, the campground was only half full. We cooked and enjoyed a growler of Pliny the Elder from a lunchtime stop at the Russian River Brewery and settled in for the night. At dawn I woke up and explored the beach looking for photos. It was a quiet, foggy morning that resulted in some quiet, muted images. After an hour or so, I went back to the tent to get Erinn. We brewed some coffee and went back out on the beach. In a cave on the north end of the beach, Erinn was quick to spot two humpback whales swimming by the rocks not 100 yards from shore. Their backs kept breaching, but they never put their tales up, so there are no photos worth sharing. Still cool to see them so close. A moment later some kayakers came around the bend and passed within 50 feet of the whales. When they came to shore we asked if they knew what kind of whales they were, but they hadn’t seen them! From the looks of it, they were there to go abalone diving, a popular activity in the area.
Redwoods National Park
After we packed our tent we headed north to the Redwoods and camped at a fantastic site beneath the trees in Jedidiah State Park. Along the way we first stopped at the Pacific Star Winery in Fort Bragg, situated right on the edge of the rocky cliffs. We did a tasting in their tasting room and then enjoyed a glass with lunch from a bench overlooking the ocean. The entire coastline was still covered in fog, and as it lifted it revealed a smoke column arising from a distant fire to the south. Hopefully it wasn’t too big, but it made for a unique image of the coastline. From there we continued north, making a quick stop to drive through the Chandelier Tree, a giant redwood with an opening at the bottom you can drive an SUV through and continuing up through the Avenue of the Giants, a 31-mile stretch of towering redwoods running parallel to the 101 in Humboldt County. After a couple stops to check out the trees we barreled onward, not stopping again until early evening when we came across the Six Rivers Brewery in McKinleyville, who make a killer-hot habañero IPA. It’s so spicy it’s actually best to mix with their normal IPA, which still leaves a little heat and a hint of the pepper flavor without being overwhelming. As you may have noticed, there are many stops at vineyards and breweries along this trip. I can’t imagine heading to these regions, known for having some of the best of both categories, and not stopping in to as many as possible. But, as it’s a road trip, you do have to pace yourself. Anyway, from there we made our way to the campground and managed to set up the tent just as the last light was fading away. The site was surrounded by trees and ferns and was cool and quiet. I also have to add that it had some of the nicest bathrooms and showers I’ve ever seen at a campground.
Portland
Next stop, Portland. Actually, we were fortunate to stay at the home of some friends in nearby Vancouver, Wash. And before getting there, I do have to mention that we stopped at Rogue Farms in Independence, Ore., where we had lunch along with another tasting. Rogue is known for some great beers as well as some cringe-worthy-but-inventive ones, such as an ale made from the yeast found in their brewer’s own beard. We tried this once visiting with family in South Carolina. Not bad actually, just don’t think about it too much. This time we stuck with more traditional brews and ate lunch alongside huge fields of hops. I thought I’d gone to heaven. Back to Portland, I spent a week here several years ago while attending a photo gathering called “Geekfest.” The event, mostly of newspaper photojournalists, consisted of a shoot-off, so I got to know the city fairly well in a short amount of time as I walked everywhere looking for shots. Despite that, it had been a long enough absence that I’d forgotten quite a lot, so I was able to look on the city with mostly fresh eyes. When we arrived, we were able to meet up with my friend Nic, who produced my Macklemore poster shoot last year. It’s always fun reconnecting with old colleagues, and we had a couple of hours to do so at a local bar on the east side. After that, we spent that night and the next day with Erinn’s friends, who took us down the the Multnomah Falls, for a great hike on Angels Rest, where her friend’s finger was bitten by a ground squirrel, and then for a stroll downtown that included a sighting of a house boat on the move, a visit to Powell’s Books and dinner at a local pizza joint. We really love this area and, if rent continues to skyrocket in Venice, may someday move there.
Olympic National Park, Washington
Portland’s visit was all too brief, but we had to keep moving. Next stop: Olympic National Park. This was now new territory for both of us, and we were excited for some rain forest camping. Fortunately, without the rain. From Portland we headed northwest to the coast and came across one of our favorite accidental finds, Astoria, Ore. One of the first things you learn within 30 minutes of arrival, is that this was where they filmed Goonies. Astoria’s an old port town in logging country, with large semis loaded with stacks of pine trees cruising the outskirts of town past old motels advertising free cable. Other than the trees, it somewhat reminded me of a small town you might find within an hour or so of Pittsburgh. After driving around, we got out to walk and eventually stopped for lunch at the Fort George Brewery, which turned out to be a great find. The food was really good — I had a garlic sausage — and their selection of craft brews was surprisingly large for what seemed like a small establishment. We ordered a tasting and were happily surprised to find that it came with a pour of every available brew, I believe it was more than a dozen, ranging from a variety of IPA’s to their Spruce Budd Ale, made of nothing but spruce tips and malted barley. The spruce ale is a perfect idea for the region, but wasn’t a favorite. Still, we enjoyed every minute of our visit. From there, we crossed the Astoria-Megler Bridge over the expansive Columbia River, hopping over the Washington state line about halfway across. “New state!” I exclaimed as we crossed the line. I’d have to look closely, but I believe I’ve at least driven through every state in the Continental U.S., other than Washington. Maybe not North Dakota. Either way, this felt like a big deal. Lush and green as we’d expected, we kept on the gas as we had a long way to go to get to our campground at the park. We never gave ourselves more than 5 or 6 hours of driving time between points on our way north. With numerous stops, though, that can quickly become a 10- to 12-hour day. We eventually made it and still had a couple hours of daylight to look around, so we took an opportunity and hopped out when we saw a sign for beach access on the western shore. We made the short hike and found ourselves alone, sandwiched between the pines and the Pacific on a beautiful, driftwood-covered beach. We spent about half an hour climbing on some of the hundreds of logs and taking pictures in the late afternoon light. We then continued north and soon took a right into the the Hoh Rainforest. The campground we were looking for was about 30 miles inland and we once again arrived to our destination with only a short amount of daylight remaining. The site was large and in the middle of a green field of ferns, moss-covered logs and apparently a good bit of poison ivy. I’ve never gotten a reaction to the stuff despite countless outings in the woods since a very young age, so I never really learned to look out for it. Erinn, on the other hand, for good reason knows exactly what it looks like and did a good job of keeping us away from it. At dusk the slugs come out too. We saw one giant slug a couple nights prior in the Redwoods, but here they were everywhere. They were no bother though, so we didn’t feel the need to attack them with salt or lure them into an upside-down jar lid full of beer as I used to do as a kid to help protect the garden in the backyard. We woke up the next morning, the slugs now back underground, packed up and headed west back to the shore, then north and east along the shore. Along the way we noticed Crescent Lake and decided to take a look. We entered near a boat launch with a nearby dock, and again found ourselves the only one there. The lake was pristine and the clearest water we’d ever seen. Erinn later read that the water is low in nitrogen, which prohibits algae growth, keeping the water clear and blue. We hung out on the dock for a bit and dipped our toes in. It was damn cold, but the temptation to jump in was too much. I convinced Erinn to join me and we headed back to the car to suit up, also grabbing an underwater housing for my camera. After some hesitation we both went for it. It was freezing, but worth it. After the second jump I acclimated enough to stay in and swim around a bit. It was pretty amazing and also counted as a shower for the day. Moving on, we headed to Port Townsend and took a ferry into northern Washington and soon the Canadian border.
Vancouver
Assuming you saw the photos as you scrolled down to the story (assuming you’re even reading it), you may have noticed a man kneeling before a beautiful woman in front of an expansive view of Vancouver. That would be me, proposing to my girlfriend of six years, love of my life, best friend and business partner, Erinn. Yeah, I buried the lead. If you could zoom in a bit, you would also notice we’re both soaked in sweat. I had been planning to propose in Vancouver, the northernmost point of our trip, for a couple of months. When Erinn found something called the Grouse Grind, I figured that would be the time to do it, despite knowing we’d be tired and sweaty. The “Grind” is a stair climb that takes you 2,800 feet (in 1.8 miles) up Grouse Mountain to a 4,000 foot vantage point overlooking all of Vancouver to the south. A popular workout spot for the locals, as well as an attraction for ambitious tourists, the climb takes roughly an hour to scale for regulars and around an hour and a half for tourists. Though competitive climbers are able to make it closer to the half-hour mark. We were set on beating an hour, but despite having done a bit of conditioning at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook steps in Culver City, and the hike a few days prior in Portland, we weren’t quite up to the challenge. Our time was a somewhat disappointing hour and eight minutes. Nevertheless, it felt great after days in the car. Back to the proposal. At the top of the mountain, I quickly found a spot that had a great view and not many people milling around. I didn’t really want to make a show of it, but was going to do it either way. I realized the three people you see in the picture were oblivious and went about setting up my tripod. At the bottom of the hill Erinn had noticed I was taking it and thought I was crazy, but is also used to me lugging gear around wherever we go, so soon dismissed it. As soon as I had set up, I had Erinn stand in place so I could focus and set the camera’s timer to go off and take 9 shots, the maximum it will do in that mode. Just then a guy walked up, apparently wanting to get a shot of the same view. I tried to delay, pretending to fidget with my camera, but Erinn was quickly starting to get chilly and was also being bombarded by a swarm of gnats. I gathered that if I delayed any longer the moment was going to be ruined and decided to go for it. The rest played out as you see it, with the 9th shot fortunately catching her taking the ring. I’d have preferred the whole sequence, but there are no do-overs with this sort of thing. Following her “yes,” I stood up to kiss her and as we did receive a solitary, but enthusiastic round of applause from our witness, who then excused himself. The rest of the day was spent wandering around the city in a happy daze. We must have walked another 10-15 miles that day as we made our way from our apartment in Chinatown to downtown, to Stanley Park, south to the English Bay Beach and finally finishing the night with a walk across the Burrard Bridge to a great sushi place called Octopus’s Garden. I think even if the life-changing event atop Grouse Mountain hadn’t occurred, and despite the short stay, Vancouver ranks as one of my favorite cities. From a design standpoint it just feels like it’s the way a modern city is supposed to be made. It’s surrounded by beautiful mountains and waterways. Roadways run alongside bike paths, sidewalks and subway lines. Rooftops are green. Those aesthetics plus a wide variety of oyster happy hours with hoppy beer offerings have me sold. Granted, we haven’t been there in the winter.
Seattle
The only thing I wanted from Seattle was a great shot of the Space Needle. I’d heard it was possible, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find the right angle. Maybe next time.
Actually, I needed a break from taking photos and decided to entertain myself. Apparently I still do this by taking pictures. As soon as we arrived I had a good meeting with an ad agency, then went out to enjoy the city. We managed to cover quite a bit of territory from our base in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The apartment we stayed in was actually the apartment complex used in the ’90s Cameron Crowe film, Singles. It was on Erinn’s list of possible places to see and then she ended up finding it as a rental on AirBnB. From the perspective of a couple of ’90s grunge fans who grew up on “Black Hole Sun” and “Evenflow,” staying in the same apartment where Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder once actually slept is about as Seattle as it gets. In a day and a half, we managed to cover a good bit of territory, from some great breweries and restaurants in the Ballard neighborhood, to Union Lake, Downtown and even the Space Needle, though we didn’t go up, instead opting to have a snack while listening to some live music at a Filipino festival in the surrounding park. Once again we beelined for any oyster happy hour we could get our hands on, which was eventually our downfall. It’s hard to say for sure what the cause was, but on the last night Erinn came down with food poisoning that lasted all the way through the next day as we made our way home. Our itinerary had us beelining it home from Seattle in two days with an overnight in Lassen Volcanic National Park on the way home. Though she was close to feeling better, we decided that camping wasn’t the best option at the moment and opted for a Holiday Inn in Redding, Calif. A king-sized bed and cable did the trick and she was pretty much back to normal by morning. The last day should have been easy, just a straight shot down the Grapevine back to LA. But for one thing. Since we’ve had Erinn’s car, a 2001 Suzuki SUV, the AC has never worked. Living in Venice though, with an average high of 72, we’ve never felt the need to fix it. We don’t have AC in our apartment either and only miss it one or two days a year. This was fine and good heading up the coast on the way north. We were fortunate to bring our local weather with us and never had a day over 75 degrees, nor a drop of rain. The current state of the Central Valley, though, is pretty awful and we hadn’t thought much about the heat we’d be driving through until we were upon it. For about six of the 10 hours it took to get home we were in 95 to 106 degree dry, nasty heat. Of course, we had to have the windows down, but it barely felt like it was helping. Instead it felt like being in a convection oven, as hot air whipped around us, perhaps keeping us dry but not really cooling us down. There was no escape, so we bore it and barreled ahead, set on reaching the Angeles National Forest, on the other side of which temps were back down in the 80s and cooling to the 70s as we neared the coast. Despite the lack of rain lately, it’s somewhat easy to forget what a drought California is enduring. If you need a reminder, go to the Central Valley. Much of the state is a tinder box, and here’s hoping things turn around soon.
Well, that was a longer post than usual, but thanks for sticking with me. And to answer your question, no, we haven’t set a date.