All in Travel
One of the side effects of the Covid-19 pandemic is that domestic travel skyrocketed in 2021. After staying home during all of 2020, people wanted to get out. For the most part, international trips were off the table. So finding campsites on Saturday and Sunday was a never-ending chore for us, one that was often unsuccessful.
Never been to Idaho. Always wanted to go. Beautiful scenery, awesome rivers, great trout fishing. Why wouldn't you go? We left Portland on I-5, crossing the Columbia River and hopping off in Vancouver.
We read the weather headlines with a touch of disbelief. "Triple-Digit Temperatures!" "Record-Breaking Heat Wave!" We were on the Oregon coast. In spite of the record heat only 100 miles away, we often wore our cold-weather jackets, at the end of July. Frequently, those jackets were not warm enough.
That road was US Highway 101. The "Redwood Highway," as northern California tourism groups call it, runs from Los Angeles to the Seattle area, over 1000 miles. Our route had brought us to the northern end of California Highway 1 and onto 101.
After nearly two months of exploring the area around San Francisco, Susan and I were ready for the next portion of our adventure- the return trip to Florida! We left Maxx and Catalina at midmorning one Sunday, heading for California Highway 1 north and Salt Point State Park.
We found an independent coffee shop, got the java, and hit the road. That road was California Coastal Highway 1 (from here-on out known as Highway 1), one of the most famous drives in the country. Friends who had driven it told us not to take it south. We would learn why later this day.
Anyone who loves the outdoors has been told, "You HAVE to visit Yosemite!" I'd certainly heard it, over and over. Enough people follow the advice that one needs reservations just to enter the park. It has gotten that crowded the past few years.
A volcanic national park? What the heck is that? Will I see volcanoes blowing up? When you visit Lassen for the first time, you don't know what to expect. It slaps you in the face pretty quickly! After leaving the visitor center, a short ride puts you at Sulphur Works. Here, numerous vents in the ground emit sulfur-stinking steam.
We faced another campsite dash. Death Valley National Park accepts no campground reservations, so the plan was to get there as early in the day as possible. Unfortunately, that put us both on the interstate and in armpit Las Vegas during morning rush hour.
The highlight of our one-week Alaskan Adventure was to be a halibut charter in the Cook Inlet out of Ninilchik. I had spoken with the captain several times on the phone and was optimistic about success. But Alaskan weather intervened as it often does and after rising early and meeting at the boat, the captain said the weather was just too rough to go out.
Utah Highway 12 passed through two red sandstone arches before we saw the sign for the Red Canyon campground. It had been an early start and a dash- this campground was first-come, first-served. We pulled in at 10 AM and found a site immediately.
