Our latest journey, a road trip to Seattle to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, got off to a low-key start today. We left San Jose around 9am and with little effort (and virtually no traffic problems) made it to Eureka around 4pm. We’re heading up to Brookings tomorrow; it’s located 5 miles into Oregon from the California state line. We plan to provide trip updates (hopefully including pictures) periodically over the next few days, so stay tuned!
We stopped for lunch at the Phoenix Bakery in Hopland. Compared with the positive experience reported earlier this year on ba.food, we were not impressed. We had the tri-tip fougaza, which was interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling. Besides the beef, it included marinated artichoke hearts and black olives, but the bread itself was way underdone. We also tried their sticky buns. Smelled and looked great, but it was way over-baked. Also, it had apple slices inside. That was a nice variation, but the fact they were unpeeled didn’t work too well. Oh well, it was worth a try, but probably not a return visit. Too inconsistent, at least on this visit.
After lunch we continued north on 101 for a while before turning off on the Avenue of the Giants, a 31 mile route through the heart of the redwoods. A very beautiful drive, though it was hard to get decent photos. Redwood trees are very tall, and they grow so close together that there is little light when standing in the middle of a redwood grove. I did find a few nice photos over at Dan Heller’s site. He quite accurately captured the mood invoked by being in the middle of the ancient giants.