Northern California

We followed I-5 south into California and the little town with the strange name, Yreka. The origin of the name isn't reliably known — it may come from an Indian word, but another possibility emerges when you spell it backwards and add a "b." We were in the area known locally as Jefferson State, because citizens have for decades wanted to create a new state from counties in northern California and southern Oregon — rural counties that had more in common with each other than with the distant metropolitan capitals that governed them. They never succeeded, of course, but the name lives on.

By now the coastal weather forecast had improved considerably, so we headed west over formidable ranges of mountains on curvy and narrow state highway 96. We missed the turnoff for the coast and continued on and on down the highway. Eventually (the next day) we made it to the Pacific Ocean at Arcata and swung northward on U.S. highway 101 along the coast as far as Crescent City.

Although California has a huge population, the northern coast — from suburban San Francisco to the Oregon border — is sparsely populated, which suited us fine, as we enjoyed the small towns and relaxed beach and ocean atmosphere. The highway goes right through Redwood National Park and we marveled at the ancient and stately trees. We remembered that their continued existence was not assured during Ronald Reagan's term as governor of California — he wanted to open the redwood forests to commercial lumbering, famously saying "If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all."

South of Eureka, highway 101 takes an inland route, but state highway 1 offers an alternate route that runs right along the coast, so we chose that. The road winds up and down the sides of coastal mountains, offering a new ocean view at each curve in the road. At Fort Bragg, we stopped for lunch at Sharon's Restaurant (recommended), in a charming cottage at the water's edge, and enjoyed crab cakes on oriental slaw. (Thanks to Mary H. for pointing us down Harbor Drive to a pocket of good restaurants at the dock.) The next day we were hungry when we came into tiny Elk, Calif., and stopped at the rustic and somewhat countercultural Queenie's Roadside Cafe (recommended). There I ordered homemade corned beef hash, freshly prepared to order, and pronounced it the best I'd ever eaten. Farther south in Bodega Bay, I stopped for lunch at a fish shack called the Spud Point Crab Company for a bowl of their award-winning clam chowder ($7, recommended), full of seafood that comes off the fishing boats right across the street, and, to my palate, seasoned to perfection.