Seattle-San Jose Road Trip
Back
in the car, we drove through some redwood country straight to Eureka, California,
where we checked into a Rodeway Inn with a fridge, internet access, and built-in
extra pillows in the room (i.e., two beds).
We went out to Kyoto’s for a sushi dinner at 8:30. The reviews online raved about the place, but I had been skeptical until I saw one comparing it specifically to Kirala in Berkeley, which I always remember fondly. So I dragged Robert to Kyoto’s—it’s only open from 6-9pm Wednesday-Saturday nights, run by a husband and wife team, her the chef, and brilliant with food, and him the waiter, and crazy—just plain old lovably crazy.
Right away we noticed the menu proclaimed that there would be no corn syrup sodas (corn syrup is an evil molecule) and no credit cards here (they steal our data and track us). But all of the craziness only added to the atmosphere, and besides, nothing could take away from this food. Everything was beautifully presented and perfectly made—for one thing, they grow their own edible flowers, hundreds of varieties, in order to garnish the plates. The nigiri were perfect, the albacore sashimi melt-in-your-mouth wonderful, and all of the fish very fresh (the owners know many of the fishermen personally who are their suppliers). We had a lemon roll—salmon with lemon on top, avocado in middle, lots of chives and shiso—and the desserts were also fabulous, with wonderful homemade ice cream and great green tea-almond-ginger-coconut cookies and candied pecans. Of course, the desserts came with a political speech, which intrigued rather than bothered us (we ate the Gaza Split and Pear Harbor desserts, for instance, and I cannot do justice to the owner’s monologue about them, but they certainly tasted delicious). The whole dinner came to $80 with tax and tip, and we realized that in New York, it would easily cost twice that.
Redwoods and Driving (Thursday)
In the morning we stopped at a natural foods supermarket right in Eureka (a booming town compared to everything else we’d driven through since Portland) and got a locally made shiitake-onion sourdough bread, as well as cultured cream cheese with no thickeners added—I made the best smoked salmon sandwiches with these and we ate them in the car on the way driving south.
We soon exited 101 to take Avenue of the Giants south from Pepperdell, driving through groves of huge trees. We stopped at all the little places: we took a small hike/walk (it was very buggy) in Founder’s Grove in Humboldt State Park, we paid $3 for a drive-through tree (in Myers Flat), we saw the Eternal Tree House (a 20-food hobbit room in a 2,500-year-old tree), and we saw the Immortal Tree. Below, Robert in a chair made from redwood twigs; use going through the drive-through tree (really, it was very close. Many people gave up and just walked through, which seemed kind of lame to us, but if we hadn't had all the visibility of a convertible, we may well have scraped a little on the side. We did get to observe all the different colors of paint scraped off on the inside of the tree, right around car-height), and me in the Eternal Tree House entrance.
Above, on the walk in Founder's Grove, you see what was once the tallest tree in the park before wind felled it about fifteen years ago. At left is the view down its trunk, and at right I'm standing near its roots.
Loving the views of giant trees straight up from our convertible, we were sad when Avenue of the Giants ended, dumping us back onto 101 and then onto 1 where it split. Route 1 had its own views and challenges, though: All I have to say is that Route 1 is very very curvy, just like people say. We’d driven 1 south of San Francisco, but that was nothing to this. Robert observed that it was about as curvy as it can be and still be a road, as opposed to a slip-and-slide. There were nice views as we drove along, but this is California, after all—it’s all generically pretty, but rather characterless. The most exciting part of the scenery came as we drove through a stretch of the coastline that to us looked exactly like the Scottish coast—as seen in movies. Of course, it could just be possible that the movies were filmed here. . . .
We stopped in Fort Bragg for lunch, first going down to the Noyo harbor and ogling the salmon derby signs, and then eating at the Wharf restaurant—crab cakes and a fried fish (local rock cod) platter, fast and good, with a view of a sea lion out the window (he frolics around looking for scraps from the fishing boats that come in, the waitress said).
After lunch, we kept driving south on 1, which was still quite curvy, while observing that there was absolutely no phone service anywhere along there. Below, two views from Route 1 of the coast--one with an island of seals and pelicans.
At Bodega Bay, we turned and took route 12 to cut inland back to 101 so that we could head into the Sonoma and Napa Valleys. Along the road we bought some locally grown rainier cherries, $8 for a bag of about two pounds—yellow, fat, sweet, and almost plum-sized and textured. They were the sweetest, ripest, best cherries I’ve ever had, and we ate some driving inland, while madly checking for cellphone service.
Now finally back in the realm of civilization, we drove to Novato, where Mona lives—apparently it’s a weird little town that closes super early, with even the coffee shops closed at 5pm. We sat down in the Mi Pueblo Taqueria to drink a jamaica and an horchata and to nibble on a tasty lengua taco as a snack, while we waited for Mona to get out of work and meet us for dinner. We met at Wildfox, a local restaurant that despite its strip-mall location (this gets Robert and me every time) was quite nice. I had a very good shrimp risotto, Robert had venison shanks, and we shared a nice chocolate-apricot bread pudding dessert with excellent ice cream and caramel sauce.
Mona and Carlos insisted on treating us to dinner, and afterward we took a little drive with them to look at the stars, and then checked into a local Travelodge for the night—they offered their couch, but we didn’t want to bother them by camping out in their living room when they had to get up for work the next morning.