California Western Skunk Train
The Redwoods
Ferndale and Eureka
Snapshots - Here are some of the pictures I took on a trip up the Northern California coast from due west of Santa Rosa, up hwy 1 to Ft. Bragg. North of Ft. Bragg hwy 1 joins US 101, passing through the redwoods to Crescent City. The weather on the coast was foggy the entire trip while inland a few hundred feet was sunny and warm.While I'm sure the scenery south of Fort Bragg was spectacular, I really have no way to confirm this. The highlight of that portion of the trip was a small and very old cemetery. Surrounded by Monterey Cyprus and filled with bright pink lillies and overlooking the ocean, it just begged for a few quiet moments of reflection. Most interesting were the headstones displaying photographs of the deceased. What would G. Valenti, who passed on eighty-some years ago, think about having his memory promoted on the internet today? A better question might be what on earth was an Italian native doing living on this remote stretch of California coast at the turn of the last century? There are so many unanswerable questions...
The highlight of the trip north (for me) was a ride on the California Western Railroad's Baldwin Mikado 2-8-2 steam engine #45. I remember seeing advertisements for this trip in Sunset Magazine back in the 1960's. We took the half day trip to Northspur and back. I knew it was going to be a good trip from the first blast on the steam whistle. I took way too many pictures. Oh well...
Eureka was not at all what I expected. The old houses were spectacular. The real shame is, for all the redwoods that have been logged, the Eureka Inn, the largest redwood structure in the world, is all we have to show for it. If you've never seen mature Redwood or Sequoia trees, you haven't seen a real tree. Their lowest branches start where the very top of most of the worlds other tallest trees end.