Day 13 ...The Journey home..

    I intended on driving straight through from San Fransisco to Eugene via I-5 but when I discovered this weird little cut off on my map I took it.  I had been on the road for almost two weeks by this time and driving home proved to be more tiring than I had thought it would.  And I-5 has to one of the most boring drives ever.  Does anybody else feel this way or have I driven it way too many times.
    I discovered a sweet little town on this serendipitous detour called Shasta.  The town had some beautiful old ruins right in the middle of town so of course I had to stop and take some pictures.  According to the sign this was a bank in a once thriving gold mining town.  

     As you can see on the sign below Shasta was quite the town in it's day.  The sign says "by 1854, Shasta was home to California's longest row of brick buildings north of San Fransisco."

    I took a several shots of the ruins but this next one turned out to be one of my favorites...

     As you can see the town has spent the money to retrofit the brick buildings with huge steel rods.

     I love surprises like this.  Makes me want to drive ONLY on roads I have never been on before.  But I was headed home so after a few hours of winding through the mountains I landed in Arcata for the night.  I was really hoping for a sweet deal on a good but cheap motel room but I was too tired to look much further than the first one I saw. 

   After getting settled in the room I walked a few doors up and had a delicious quesadilla and a beer.   The next morning I headed north up Interstate 1 and soon found a beautiful beach to stop at.  Since I was ending my journey soon I took this shot to symbolize it.  Footsteps in the sand leading to a rock mountain says it all...

    Even though I needed to get home I knew I wasn't going to see the ocean for awhile so I hung out a little longer and snatched a few more shots.   I thought the tire made for an interesting focal point...

     And below is the site of a beach sculpture I once made years ago.  The sculpture has long since been washed out to sea and now there is graffiti to take it's place...

    I continued up Highway One.  Fortunate for me it was a beautiful day making for a nice welcome back to Oregon.   I resorted to a 'drive-by shooting' for the bridge you see below...

    Even though I slept well in Arcata I was still tired and anxious too.  I got home about 6 that night and quickly jumped into the bathtub,  leaving the unpacking of my loaded to the top vehicle for when I woke up... 
    Thanks for following me on my birthday road trip. You all were such great company.   And as always your comments are welcomed and appreciated...  xo  yona c. riel

day eleven... devil's slide and p-town w/pam...

     My old friend Pam was in town for the International Ms Leather contest, held in San Fransisco at the Holiday Inn.  I picked her up in my truck and after saying hi to a few people that I remembered from way back and we headed down HWY 1, our old haunt.  First stop was a really awesome ruin...

     We played around on the ruin taking ridiculous pictures of each other...  I am sure you'll remember this pose of mine from a Tiger's birthday party at Pizza Research Institute...

    It has taken 2 and a half years for my fingers to be able to flip the bird with both hands... (that's why at least in part I am smiling).
    Here's a shot of looking down the cliff onto Devil's Slide beach.  It gives you an idea where we are...

 

     There was some beautiful graffiti inside the ruin so once I got up there I took a picture..

     By the time we left several other 'tourists' had stopped to climb on the ruin.  It had a 'no trespassing' sign but when I am with Pam I do silly things.  Just saying. 
     The traffic was amazingly slow as we drove south down to P-town and Half Moon Bay.  After all it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and everybody with their mothers, brothers, BFFs and surfing buddies were at the beach enjoying it.  We got down to P-Town, another old haunt, and gaggled our disappointment to each other about how much it had changed.  Still we found some interesting photo opportunities.  It was high tide so the beach we used to go to was not there, at least for the next 12 hours or so.

        But looking out into the marina there were a few abandoned boats making for an unusual shot...

   Also parked nearby there was a cool old truck affording yet another chance for fooling around and taking pictures...

     We drove back up to Day's Inn in Half Moon Bay, (which was 30 dollars cheaper than the Comfort Inn next door) and had salmon on parmesan crackers, smoking loon chardonney, and a whole night to catch up on stories.