Iron Fist

I managed to get on the road right around noon on the day after my birthday, heading south. I’d been quoted a drive-time of just under six hours by Google maps to get to Crescent City from Portland. I picked this particular destination because I had passed through there on my way to San Francisco a few years ago, and given the limited time I’d had for my trip and what I wanted to see it seemed like a reasonable place to spend the night after a day on the road. It’s just south of the Oregon border, and at the far north end of what you could really consider to be the redwood forest.

Although I’d had the optimistic-yet-unrealistic hope that I would get far enough south and west to catch the sunset on the ocean, it started to get dark as I drove through Grants Pass, and between rain and windy roads and lowered city speed limits it was after seven before I pulled into Crescent City. I was experiencing that combination of exhaustion and extremely pent-up antsiness that typically comes with taking a road trip, so after kicking around in my hotel room for an hour or so I went back out to see if there was anything worth photographing at night. I got a halfway decent shot of seagulls roosting in the marina before giving up and trying to find a restaurant that was still open after eight o’clock.

Though the forecasts had called for rain, I woke up to one of those absolutely gorgeous fall days on the coast, where the sky is blue and mist is rising from the ground every where as the rain evaporates. I drove around the beaches, coming at last to where a wall jutted out into the sea to shield the marina from waves, and despite the warnings walked out on it to breathe in that sea air that I miss so much.

I spent some time with my pants legs rolled up wading in the tide, much to the dismay of the resident gulls, before getting back in my car and driving back up along the coast to the north end of the city, near their tiny local airport.

Crescent City is a tiny town, far from anything else, and my barista actually asked if I wanted a straw for my capuccino. On this idyllic fall morning, though, I had the thought that a surfing town surrounded by redwood trees would be the kind of place I could easily spend the rest of my life.

This wasn’t my final destination, though, so I got back on the 101 and headed south a little before noon.

(I’ve got a photo set from my trip up on Flickr, I’ll be adding to it over the next few days, so keep an eye on it.)