Expedition up North

We took an awesome trip last weekend! Here's the story...

Mitchell's company owns power plants that produce renewable energy. His job is to go to these power plants and do whatever needs to be done to make them more efficient and profitable. The corporate office is in Sacramento but the power plants are not. One is in the northeast, Susanville, another in the northwest, Scotia, and one is down south near Palm Springs. When Mitchell travels down south I can't go with him because he has to fly but when he goes up north I can because we drive. He spends the same amount of money on gas and hotel rooms whether or not I'm there so Greenleaf doesn't mind if I go. Yay for me!

Thursday morning we woke up at 4:30am and got in the car to drive to Susanville in the northeast. Because of the layout of the highways, we have to drive through Reno, Nevada (First #1, we've been in Nevada) and then back into Cali. This plant is in the desert so not many pretty pics from there but Mitchell only needed to work for about 4 hours and luckily another Greenleaf guy was there with his wife so his wife and I hung out while they were working.

Honey Lake plant (the steam rising) 

About 1pm, Mitchell and I got on the road to drive straight across the state to the northwest to visit the other plant. We had already driven 4 hours to get to Susanville but the drive to get to Fortuna would be another 6 hours. If the road from Susanville to Fortuna was straight it probably would have only taken about 4 hours to get there. However, this was driving through the mountains so imagine the most windy road possible and that's what we were on. As soon as you completed the bend to the right, you turned the wheel and went back left, back and forth, back and forth. Twenty miles felt like forever because it was back and forth and of course, you can't drive that fast. They had signs that said "speed enforced by aircraft" but I think it should have just said "speed enforced by Newton". If you drive too fast on these roads, the laws of physics are going to pull you straight off that mountain! (First #2, driving through the mountains)

Lassen National Forest (not the windy part)

Pretty view somewhere along the drive

So after 10 hours on the road on Thursday, Friday was a pretty chill day. Mitchell went into work and I went for a walk along Eel River in the morning and enjoyed the gorgeous mountains surrounding us. I spent most of the afternoon in Starbucks, catching up on BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) homework and trying out their new "blonde" blend... love it!

My walk along the river

Saturday was when the adventure really begins! We decided to stay in Fortuna on Friday night so we could spend Saturday touring on our way back to Sacramento. First on the list was driving through the Redwood Forests (First #3, Redwood Forest) along Avenue of the Giants. This road travels along Highway 101 but it allows you to take the scenic route and drive through the forest. The Redwood Forest needs to be on everyone's bucket list. It was phenomenal. Those trees are literally hundreds of feet tall, really wide in diameter and soooo old.

Mitchell in front of a very large Redwood

Avenue of the Giants

Along that route is a place called Drive Thru Tree Park where they have literally carved out the middle of a tree so you can drive your car through it. We had to drive through one at a time to get the pictures but we each did it and it was so cool! How many people can say they drove through a tree?! Well worth the $5! (First #4, driving through a tree)

Driving through the tree

Shortly after that, we jumped on Highway 1 (Shoreline Highway) and drove through about 20 miles of windy roads, back and forth, back and forth in an effort to get to the coast to drive down south. After 20 miles of winding, right when you're about to puke or jump out of the car because you can't take it anymore, you pop out of the trees and the majestic Pacific Ocean is right in front of you. (First #5, see the Pacific Ocean) Can I just say, it beats the daylights out of any Texas beach?? Wow!

The Pacific Ocean

We drove down 1 until Fort Bragg, where my eye happened to catch a sign for Glass Beach. We had heard of it but didn't realize where it was. We pulled a u-turn and parked along the beach and hiked out to the water. Instead of sand at this beach, the beach consists of tons of glass pebbles that are a result of trash dumping in the Pacific. The ocean has smoothed out the broken glass to make these beautiful pebbles. We collected some of the glass to put in a jar back at home. (First #6, see Glass Beach)

Glass Beach

Glass Beach

We continued down to Mendocino and stopped for lunch and enjoyed our food on the second floor balcony overlooking the ocean. After Mendocino, we left the shoreline to head east back to Sacramento. On this drive we drove through part of the wine country and saw miles upon miles of vineyards. (First #7, drive through vineyards) Since it's winter time, everything was dead but I imagine it is beautiful right before they collect all the grapes for wine making. We will definitely be back during that time!

The Hidden Valley

Along the way, we stopped for pictures at Mitchell's "hidden valley" and continued on to Sacramento. This ended up being another 10 hour day in the car so shortly after this point, we became tired of being in the car and tired of the windy roads so we just bore down and made it back home. It was an incredible first trip around California. The scenery in the mountains is breath-taking and we can't wait to go back and camp in those areas. Usually when people think of California, they think of all the busy cities and smog but that's mainly in the south. Northern California has crisp, clear air, tons of gorgeous trees and never-ending mountains. I highly recommend a trip here!