At the risk of repeating myself, it's been another gorgeous clear blue skies kinda day topping out at around 30C. We went a short way down the highway before taking Jim's recommendation and heading onto The Avenue of the Giants. Another awesome drive through these amazing trees. Quite a few show the scars of fire, even to the degree of being almost hollowed out at the base but up high they live on. One tree, the so called immortal tree, has been through fires, had loggers try to chop it down and even been through a massive flood but still it flourishes. Some of the fallen trees have others sprouting up out of the original tree where it's now lying, easy to see how they're considered almost immortal.
We took a lot of walks through the trees, one was even on a specific trail but mostly we made our own way. Some of the trees that have fallen were massive and we have the pics of us looking insignificant next to them to prove it :-)
We did the obligatory tourist trap thing and paid $5 to drive through a living tree. Not too many others there so not as painful as some reviews I've read from those who had to wait a half hour to get through it. There were 20 or so other cars there in the "park" so at $5 a pop they're doing very nicely.
The idea was to go the road less travelled, off the highway and down the coast on hwy 1. First it was a very narrow winding road, lots of hairpin turns as we went through more cool shady forest. Pete was either channelling his inner rally driver or imagining himself a Jedi lol either way it was a quick trip to the coast. Once there instead of the anticipated sunny beaches we hit a solid fog. The beach was mostly invisible and the road had poor visibility. It didn't improve so when we go to Fort Bragg we turned East and finished the drive on the highway.
We got into Sanoma as the moon was rising on the Valley of the Moon road, pretty cool :-). We got to our hotel about 6.30, checked in, showered and headed off to meet Jim & Jacqui for dinner. It was at the Swiss Inn, an historical building that was built as the home of the brother of General Mariano Vallejo. It was a great night, good food, fab company. Thanks guys! They were closing the restaurant, well trying to lol as we finally left, said our goodbyes and agreed to keep in touch til we meet again at next years MACNA.