Regular readers will know that two years ago we visited Tikal in Guatemala. Tikal also is known as the location for the scenes from Planet Yavin in "Star Wars." It was where the secret rebel base was located toward the end of the film. This time, we were in the redwood forest, also known as the location for the scenes from the forest moon of Endor in "Return of the Jedi." It was where the Ewoks ambushed the Empire and the rebels blew up the second Death Star's shield generator. I love it when this blog gets nerdy!
Our trip was broken up into three sections: San Francisco; wine country and the coast just north of the Bay; and the far north near Eureka and Redwoods National Park. San Francisco was great--we had a chance to ride the cable cars a lot and saw most of the sights. We visited two tiny, hillside parks in the Russian Hill neighborhood that were incredible--
Macondray Lane and Ina Coolbrith Park. Both were super-steep and had awesome gardens and views of the Bay. We saw lots of hummingbirds and other songbirds.
We stopped off at Muir Woods on the way north to Guerneville, a small town in the Russian River Valley region. We took the coast highway, Route 1, from San Francisco all the way there--we ultimately took 1 all the way from SF to Leggett, where it meets the Redwood Highway north of Mendocino. Muir Woods offered our first glimpse at coast redwoods, and the 2-mile hike we took was relatively uneventful. Highway 1 wound above the Pacific almost the whole way to Jenner and the turn-off to Guerneville. The highway was windy all the way to Leggett really. It took at least a couple hours to cover the 50 or so miles to Jenner, but the views were incredible--high, rugged cliffs above the ocean, prairies and chaparral, deep river valleys and gulches and lots of turkey vultures. TVs were everywhere; they really were the bird of the trip.
Like other rivers in the area, the Russian originates in the wine country. Here vineyards criss-cross high hills. The emerald-green river then descends through redwoods for about 10 miles until it reaches the sea.
The next day we drove back to Highway 1 and snaked north toward the tiny town of Elk. Most of the localities in the area were lumbering towns with a few boutiques and galleries. Some looked like the community John Rambo terrorized in "First Blood." There were more towns like this to come.
We drove into the Anderson Valley at Elk and visited our first winery near Philo. We later camped amid the giant trees at Navarro Redwoods State Park. Next day we continued our winding way north to Mendocino, the most developed, er, expensive of the towns along the way. The views of the ocean were great and we were greeted by a belted kingfisher that had set up a burrow on one of the off-shore islands. We also saw our first
pelagic cormorants and
pigeon guillemots here.
From Mendocino, the rode ascended much higher coastal mountains until we got to kitschy Leggett. We made the requisite $5 drive through a redwood and proceeded north on the Redwood Highway toward Eureka. It was getting dark by the time we found a campsite at Big Lagoon County Park.
It rained all night that night, and the forecast called for more, but we pushed ahead with plans to visit Redwoods National Park that day. By this time, the terrain (and weather) was very Pacific Northwest and I kept thinking we were in Oregon for some reason. After a long ride on a dirt road, I strapped on my sandals and plodded through a downpour to Fern Canyon. I was hoping to see a water ouzel (aka
american dipper) and never did, but the skinny canyon was nice, though. I did record a pair of
varied thrushes along the way. The brightly colored thrushes are birds that I had always seen in the bird book but never in person so it was quite a thrill (the photo via the link doesn't do the thrush justice).
A pair of rangers had suggested we head to the mouth of the Klamath River to see seals and possibly whales. There had been reports of 300-plus harbor seals there. We arrived at an overlook, and it had finally stopped raining. We scanned the waters but didn't see much but thousands of cormorants. There was another overlook, even closer to the ocean but about a half-mile down and we headed that way. From there, we still couldn't see any seals or whales. Finally, a small black thing bobbing near a rock turned out to be a harbor seal playing in the surf. Then Kristin, checking every bunch of bubbles in the vicinity, saw the back of a gray whale. And soon we saw another. A couple times we got views of their tails and snouts and many views of their blowholes exhaling. We later saw many more seals bobbing where the river met the sea.
We got back to the campground and discovered our tent and sleeping bags absolutely soaked. Somehow, the sun was making a weak appearance to the west so we began airing out all of our stuff and switched campsites to higher ground. We made it through the night quite dry.
The last full day we drove back to Guerneville and stayed in the same inn we had four days before. We also hit one more winery. We made it back to San Francisco in plenty of time for our flight, returning our Dodge Caliber and passing the
Cow Palace along the way.
In all, 15 new bird species, many miles of winding roads and an introduction to many interesting places. Photos to come...please excuse the somewhat rambling post as there's no other way to summarize so much!
