Route 101

We spent all day driving along the coast of Oregon and into California. The views were spectacular and completely worth the journey to the west coast.

The sand dunes of Oregon. We wanted to get closer but after a 15 minute detour trying to, we decided to bag it.

We went through this area of construction not once but twice trying to locate a place to get close to the Dunes. As the only car on this small road and with bright orange New York license plates, they just gave that "idiot tourists" smile as we drove through again.

So excited to be near the ocean!

Huge waves. Ginormous.

Pretty clouds seen through the sun roof.

Clearly we are above clouds at this point.

We managed to see this just before the "ocean mist" rolled in. "Ocean mist" means you can't see anything.

We entered into California without realizing it until it was too late to take a picture of the sign. Well, there's a picture but because Lady was so filthy, you can't see through the dirt. Anyway, all of the sudden we're in California and there's a set-up like a border patrol. We started freaking out because we had lunch in our hands and had no clue what was going on. Turns out it was an agricultural check. What is an agricultural check you ask? We still don't really have any idea. All we were asked is if we could please pop the trunk, which we did. There were a few seconds of silence before the woman came back and, sounding surprised, stated that we did not even have a cooler (that was the first thing to go when packing Lady but we did not share this). She then asked if we wanted a map of California and, still stunned, we said yes please before driving off as fast as possible.

Insanely large tree. If you look in the foreground, you can see the dirt road we were traveling on. We picked the narrowest, windiest road to go through the Redwood Forrest because, well, why not.

Ridiculously tall trees.

Beautiful view.

Another beautiful view.

"Sarah & Halley Cross Country 2010" This is mere seconds before the ocean took our sign away.

Because why wouldn't you have a ginormous statue of Paul and Babe?

Lady drove through this tree! We were the only car around so we were able to take our time and get some great pictures. We were on our honor to pay the $5 per car entrance fee as no one was around.

This is not zoomed in and there is no fence. That is a live elk. Just standing there while a bunch of other ones stand in the background. He starred right at Halley at one point and she later whispered that she thought he was going to charge her and she almost soiled herself.

We made a very last minute change in plans and ended up staying at the Benbow Inn in Garberville. Apparently it's famous. Really old, slightly creepy, and lots of fun. Our room even had real keys instead of the credit card-esque ones we're used to.