Odometer: 58,865

Time: 09:00

After completing our laundry we leave Redding on HWY A16. It leads us through country side nothern California. It is beautiful out here, lot of small rivers, trees and golden grass, little villages and single houses spread along the road.

We then continue on HWY 36 towards the Pacific until our navigation system, which has proven to be very helpful in many cases, suggests to turn left in a small village and leave HWY 36. We skeptically follow her suggestion and after a few miles decide to trust her!? What followed was a rough and curvy road over the mountaines up and down and on and on for the next more than 100 miles! Faster? – no way, but much more beautiful than the HWY.We frequently stop to take pictures and to enjoy the view and the quietness out here, not even a fly you can hear it is absolutely quiet! It’s a very scenic drive and can definitely be recommended to anybody who has time.

Then eventually we get to HWY 101 in Garberville, south of Humboldt Redwood State Park. We turn on the Alternative Route to the HWY, Avenue of the Giants, which allows us to stop and take pictures of these huge Redwood trees, they are very impressive. Once more we are breathless about their size and wonder how old they might be. It’s very windy but these trees only very slowly and slightly wave their crown high up above us. Sometimes we feel like in a fairy-tale forest.

In Fortuna we are looking for a place to stay. There are not too many motels and the ones we check out are quite expensive for what they offer. So we decide to drive another 15 miles to Eureka. What a night mare: the hotel we were last week is out of question because we had problems with the internet, the others are either turning us off because they already look cheap and lousy or they turn out to ask too much for a smelly, lousy room, or they don’t have internet. In the end we decide to spend a bit more on a hotel tonight as it is already 9:00 pm and skip dinner.

Overnight Stay: Quality Inn, Eureka, CA

Dinner: Skipped