Redwoods National Forest

Huge is inadequate to describe these guys

I made my way up 101 until I hit the redwoods. I made a quick stop to check out the waves on the beach. I had never seen the ocean churn as much as it was that day. It looked closer to white-water rapids than waves.

One of the fun things about traveling is that you never know who you will run into. While checking out the waves, I got to talking with a couple of women from Minnesota. After chatting for a bit, the subject of "do you have a job" came up. After explaining my situation, one of the women said that if I needed a job, I should go talk with her son and tell him that she sent me. Her son, it turns out, is president of Rosemount. I received an offer to go work their after graduating college, but picked Ford instead. This is what makes traveling interesting!

I decided that since it was already pretty late I would find a place to camp. I made my way through the pitch black woods on a one lane dirt road in my car, and ended up at a camp near the beach. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea that camping on the beach would be awesome, and all the sites were taken. I made my way back and settled at the second site. It was a meadow between a section of new growth forest and old growth.

I settled in and made my first fire for the entire trip! Everywhere else I had stayed was in their "no burn" season, so I hadn't had a chance to enjoy reading by the fire. So much fun, but firewood was $8 a bundle. Not the cheapest stuff! Plus, you couldn't gather wood (more on this later) so I settled for the one bundle and let it burn down to nothing.

Something about fire makes camping feel right.

By the light of my "not as big as I really wanted it" fire, I planned out the trails I would hit in the morning. I woke up early, drank my protein shake (for 32g of protein, not the chalky taste) and set out on the trail. It wasn't long before I found the "land bridge" I was supposed to cross.

Missing both the "land" and "bridge".

All the rain had raised the river to rainy season levels, and the path was cut off. I didn't really want to wade across the pool, so I turned back to find another trail.

The path I ended up taking was through a section of old growth. These trees were huge, as evidence by the stumps of the fallen ones.

That is my Nalgene tucked in there for scale. Not even the biggest one I saw.

This one split apart like lumber. Pretty cool seeing the different layers.

The trees actually depend on fires to clear away the underbrush and competition. They lack resin, which feeds fires, and have a damp bark. Fire can still damage them if there is enough brush nearby the tree. If the heartwood is damaged, the tree will die, but can possibly stay standing for years to come.

Holes like this are examples of "chimney trees", trees that have damaged heartwood.

This is why you can't gather wood. Trees can grow on top of their fallen brethren.

This is "Big Tree". Not the biggest, but pretty big all the same.

I made my way north to another campsite in the forest. I tried to take another path that had a "land bridge". Surprise!

Not much luck with bridges today.

The river here was pretty calm, so I decided I would wade across. That is until I got a few steps in and the rocks started to become not as stable. I also got a little freaked out when I saw little black things crawling around down there. My first assumption was that they were leaches, which made me hop our pretty quickly. Upon further inspection, I saw they were snails. Still didn't want to mess with them, so I turned back.

Got my feet wet! And maybe a little snaily.

I asked the park ranger if there was an alternate route and she gave me driving directions around the river to another opening to the trail.

A very elegant game of tree stacking.

Land bridge, from the other side.

I went back to my campsite and made some dinner. I forgot to take a picture earlier in the day, but here was my campsite. It was right by the river that the land bridge would have crossed. I eat with a father and son from Pennsylvania. The son was moving out to San Francisco because "Why not?". His dad was along for the road trip. They started up north and were working their way south. It sounds like they had had a pretty nice trip so far, but the weather was starting to interfere with their plans.

Mmmm, canned chili

It rained HARD that night. I stayed up a little reading my book, when around 8:30 you could hear this "CRACK, SNAP SNAP SNAP, BOOM". Yea, that was a tree falling in the woods. Pretty freaky. I heard two more fall that night.

I woke up the next day to continue on my travels, but my tent was soaked. I had to pack up everything in the rain as fast as I could, throw it into the car, and get on the road.

Redwoods Pictures

Point Reyes National Seashore

Taken on the way to the Lighthouse

After leaving San Francisco, I wanted to check out Muir Woods. The problem was that I left on a weekend and everyone in the greater SF area decided they wanted to check out Muir Woods as well. The overflow parking area had overflow, overflow, overflow parking. Instead of fighting the crowds, I decided to keep moving.

I took CA 1 to continue my trek north. On the way, I saw signs for Point Reyes National Seashore. I didn't really have any plans for the night, so I decided to head to the visitors center and see what was available. One of the draws to the area is the back-country camping. Up until this point, all my camping sites allowed me to park right next to my campsite. Forget to take something out of the car? It is a grueling 30 second walk to the car! The horror!

I decided that it would be fun to load up my pack and hike to a campsite. The closest available site was a 5 mile hike away. Most of the hiking that I had done on the trip had been longer than that, and not too strenuous. So, I loaded up my pack with my tent, sleeping bag, clothes, food, and probably 10 lbs. of stuff I didn't really need.

I started on the journey, loaded down and optimistic. It was really beautiful walking down the paths.

About 2 miles in, the weight of my pack started to get to me. It didn't help that I had done a spotty job tying my sleeping bag, tent, and sleeping pad to my pack; they were starting to wiggle loose. I didn't want to stop because the ground was still soaked from the rain the night before. This meant for the next 3 miles I would have to deal with it wiggling. No problem, you got this Jon!

The path, until the last mile or so, was more or less flat. Enter my arch nemesis: steep hills!

"Hillsssssssssssssss!"

At some point up this hill, my tent came loose. I had to carry it for the last half mile. I finally arrived at the campsite!

Victory!

Upon arriving, I take my pack off and as I do I hear a "rip, pop, pop, pop". Well, that doesn't sound good. I wonder what caused that? Turns out, my pack wasn't used to the weight either.

Holding on by a little piece of plastic.

Well, future Jon is going to have one hell of a time trying to get back to the car tomorrow.

My campsite came equipped with some friends as well.

Not sure what he is eating, and not sure I want to know.

This guy was about as big as a nickle and his web was on the path to my site. Sweet dreams!

I was tired after a long day. This was still the same day that I got my window fixed and went out for breakfast in SF, so I called it an early night.

I woke up to hear the park ranger come around in a truck to check the site. I scrambled out of my tent and chased him down. Awesome, the park ranger is bound to have some duct tape to fix my pack! Nope, just painters tape. I didn't even bother.

It had rained that night, so everything was soaked. My breakfast was an experiment: A can of black beans, a can of chicken, a can of tomatoes, and some hot sauce. I didn't bring a heat source, so I ate it cold. It was pretty good, but it made WAY too much for the morning. I nibbled on it for about an hour as I waited for everything to dry out and to while I figured out how I would get my pack back to my car.

My solution was to take my towel and some of the rope I had to make a backup shoulder strap. If that little piece of plastic gave out, I would have to use that backup to get me back. Not a fun thought. Luckily, that little strip of plastic was hardier than expected and lasted the entire trip back. I have since used the tape I had in my car to fix it up, until next time. Minor victory of the day achieved! I hopped in my car and headed north.

I saw a sign for the lighthouse. Since it was sunny for the first time in a few days, I decided to go check it out. The road out there was long and winding. It passed by historic farms and I even saw a few cows on the side of the road, greeting people.

The road ended up at the top of a peak. From here there were amazing views all the way down the coastline and some great pictures of the cliffs.

In order to get to the lighthouse, you needed to descend 30 stories of stairs. Going down was a pain, going up was torturous.

Stairs! Almost as bad as hills!

I thought it was worth it,

I made my way back to CA 1 to continue my journey north. I made two quick stops along the way to check out the sights.

I eventually stopped for the night in Garbersville, just past where CA 1 ends. I decided to stay in a motel because I was tired of waking up wet.

Point Reyes Pictures

San Fransico

Taken from on top of Fort Point

After leaving Marina, I made my way up California 1 to San Francisco. I made a stop along the way at Half Moon Bay.

The beach went on like this for miles.

I reached San Francisco around 3pm; just enough time to check in and relax a little bit before exploring for dinner. I go to check in at the Orange Village Hostel, where I had my reservations for the week. One problem, when I made my reservations, the date changed to the following week somehow (likely opening and closing the app). This meant that I had no where to sleep for the next 4 days!

Ok, no reason to panic, I will just stay somewhere else. Well, with such short notice everything was booked. I go back to the app that got me in trouble in the first place and find somewhere that says they have a room. Leary of trying the app again, I call them directly. They say they are full. I refresh the app and it still says they have a spot. I decide to book through the app again, this time triple checking the dates and getting "trip insurance" for $5.

I showed up to the hostel, they say that they actually were overbooked, but I had a place to stay for the next two nights. After that they would either move me to a private room, or just a block down the street to their other location. Victorious, I collapse in my bed for the next hour.

Taken in Union Square, the closest park I could find. There was live music that night!

I wasn't really sure what to do in a city as big as San Francisco. I walked around for a little bit admiring the size of everything. Outside of Dublin, I think this is the most densely populated city I have ever been to. Hungry, I decided to look for someplace to eat. I was astounded by the prices of food! $20 for a sandwich! I searched around and was able to find a bakery that had a huge meal for $7. It was a little bit away from the square, but I could take it to go and eat it there. I guess it all depends on where you look.

I woke up early the next day to make it to TwilioCon. My cousin, Rachael, works there and invited me to the conference while I was in town. I met a lot of really interesting people and got excited for some project ideas I had on the road. I participated in the "Hacker Olympics" and won a Portal 2 science kit and potato, and got to see Jonathan Coulton perform at the end of the conference! It was my first tech conference ever and it was absolutely fantastic.

Our team completed the most challenges over the course of the event!

Fantastic show! Really fun to see live.

After the 2 days at the conference stuffing my face, I decided it would be a good idea to get some exercise. I woke up, swapped backpacks for my light bag (a big mistake, more on this later), and set out to explore San Francisco. The first stop was the San Francisco Maritime National History Park. This was a pretty small museum, but had historic ships anchored in the marina. 

A nice view of Alcatraz Island from the Marina.

That long bridge in the picture was closed because of the "America's Cup". I had never heard about this before, but it was going on while I was there. There were these cool, miniature, remote-control sailboats that you could learn to sail in the visitor area. It had me remembering everything from the sailing classes that I took when I was younger. I got to see part of the race that day, but without a radio I couldn't really tell what was going on.

My next stop was Fort Point, right under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an awesome step back in history. 

Old Spanish cannon which was a spoil of war.

The original design for the Golden gate bridge called for the removal of the fort. I am glad the designer was able to alter the plans to save it.

From Fort Point, I made my way to Lands End park. The trail I took wound down along the coast through Baker Beach. The cliffs were really amazing. When the fog cleared out, I got a great view of the bridge.

After this point, I decided I should start making my way back to the hostel if I was going to meet up with Rachael. I had walked a lot that day, topping out at 24.4 miles (thanks to Fitbit for keeping that data well after the 7 day retention period!). I decided I would stop by my car and get my clothes ready for my last day, since I didn't think we would be back before the parking deck closed for the night. I was met by the pictures below.

Someone had decided to break into my car and steal my backpack. They hit the window hard, because there was glass throughout the car. In my backpack I had some clothes, my laptop, my retainer, things I got from TwilioCon, some of my camping stuff, and some other misc. items. Anger, frustration, sadness, hate, sorrow, helplessness. Yea, not the best end to an otherwise great day.

I called my insurance and they were able to setup a glass shop to fix my car the next day. It is a lucky thing too, because it would rain every day for the next seven days of my trip. As for the stuff, we are still working on that.

On the last day, I ran my car to the shop as early as I could. This allowed them to see me right away and fix it. After dropping it off I went to Sidewalk Juice for a smoothie based on a suggestion from Tim Ferris. I walked back to Rachael's place so we could go grab some breakfast and talk. It was really good to chat with her. We have had opposite schedules for about 4-5 years, so even around the holidays we got to see each other for a few hours at best. Everything considered, the trip was worth it just because we got to hang out.

San Francisco Pictures

Back in Business and Marina Take 2

I recently made it up to Seattle, where my friends Max and Cait were kind enough to hold a computer for me while I made my way up there. So, I am back in business!

A lot has happened between my last post and now. I will try and release them slowly so you don't get buried in stories. Some future highlights: my car was broken into, my hiking backpack broke, I went spelunking, I climbed some mountains, and the government shut down.

This post will concentrate on what I did in Marina after driving up California 1.

The first day back we didn't accomplish much. I needed to catch up on some blog stuff and Quinn needed to finish up a project she was working on. So we sat around, typing and working, most of the day. We did get out to see "World's End" that night. I loved it because it was in the same spirit as "Hot Fuzz" and "Shawn of the Dead". Very good fun.

The second day back we were a bit more active. We went to downtown Monterey Bay to see the aquarium. Now, having just seen the aquarium in Long Beach, it gave me a unique opportunity to compare the two. Monteray Bay had the coolest Jelly exhibit I have seen. Long Beach looked like it had more sponsors, so it was a little bit bigger, with more varied exhibits. Both were pretty cool, but I think I am done with aquariums for the time being.

We walked around downtown for a little be after the aquarium. There was a classic car show going on downtown, and it was packed. There were people giving out food samples on the street (really tasty clam chowder!) and LOTS of families out. It wasn't really our thing, so we went back home to continue doing some work.

The third day we went to Point Lobos State Reserve. We got to walk around on the cliffs and through some old growth forests. There was also a section you could walk out onto the rocks and check out the tide pools. There were some sea anemones that would grab your finger and try to digest it, very slowly. Quinn called them sea anemone kisses.

We finished up with a nice diner at Frutti De Mar Grill, which was really tasty, and ice cream from the CVS.

Marina Photos