Ferndale California, the Lost Coast, and the value of a cheesy tourist photo

I didn’t have any set routes or travel plans after Trinidad, except to get to San Jose by July 21st. I did, however, have notes jotted down about places I might stop in between. They looked something like this:

• Avenue of the Giants (more redwood trees)
• Humboldt Redwoods State Park (more really big redwood trees)
• The Lost Coast (California’s last remaining strip of undeveloped coastline, rough road – drive on dirt – fun)
• Fort Bragg (sea glass beaches, check tide times to see glass)
• Mendocino (surfing and sunsets)
• Hwy 1 (coastal views)
• Point Reyes (beautiful)
• Muir Woods (redwoods and setting for scenes in The October Daye series (for the curious, this series is not about vampires or werewolves, it’s about fairies))

But after my night in Eureka, I woke up with a real need for a city day. Not like a big “I need to haul it to San Francisco” type of city day, more like an “I want to sit in a cute coffee shop somewhere and maybe have a scone,” type of city day. This is how I ended up at the Mind’s Eye Manufactory & Coffee Lounge in Ferndale, California. Ferndale was not in my notes, but sits about 40 minutes south of Eureka. The Mind’s Eye had solid Google reviews. As a bonus, it is also the launching point for driving California’s lost coast, which was in my notes. Double bonus, Ferndale also happens to be a Victorian city meaning there was something different to see. Victorian style houses and churches might be no-big-deal in many places, but they struck me as unexpected in California.

Ferndale California

I was sitting in the Mind’s Eye having a coffee and breakfast bread pudding (don’t judge me, I did a lot of hiking in the days before), by 10 a.m. Surrounded by local art on the walls, shelves stocked with games and books, and other people’s conversations about the best hikes nearby (there are several, as it turns out, but no consensus was reached as to the best so I can’t advise you as to that), it was exactly the “city” morning I had been seeking. It was so on point, in fact, that I extended my morning into the afternoon, leaving to tour Ferndale only when the early-lunch crowd started to file into the shop.

It doesn’t take long to walk around Ferndale. It is primarily two main streets lined with Victorian houses, hotels, and churches; old-timey artisan and gift shops; a garden park; and a cemetery worthy of any vampire movie. Outside of those main streets there are miles and miles of farmland laced with barns donning painted quilt patterns above the doors. I’d seen several of those barns driving in, so the main streets were all I planned to tour post coffee. I stopped in stores browsing through knick-knacks, funny cards, and chatting with owners about my trip; walked around tombstones (I really enjoy touring cemeteries, I don’t know why, perhaps it’s a Louisiana/New Orleans thing); grabbed some lunch, and eventually made my way back to Princess to start my drive through California’s lost coast.

A few Ferndale pictures.

The Lost Coast

How can I describe this drive best?

The Mattole Road loop that travels through the Lost Coast starts at Ferndale and ends in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. It is like driving down the worst road in New Orleans—potholes with the potential to swallow your car, deep ruts in cracked asphalt, the occassional absence of any modern road at all—but it has curves. The scenery along the road, however, differentiates it from any Louisiana landscape—rolling farmland, mountains in the background, sea in the distance—and in Princess, who is fully equipped with all terrain tires and four-wheel drive, I didn’t mind the road at all. In fact, while she worried about the road, I spent my time watching the mist roll through the tops of the trees; staring at the empty, ragged coastline; and eventually becoming engulfed again in the largest redwoods I’d seen yet as we entered the park. I stopped the car more than once above the fields, near the beach, in the groves, snapping pictures and sometimes sitting for a while.

For a drive that hadn’t really been a “must do” until I woke up that morning, it was quickly turning into one of the highlights of my trip, a nice reminder that the road can lead us to all sorts of unexpected places. Sometimes it pays to plan, other times going with the flow or the feel of it works out just fine.

That reminder came at just the right time too. The road was about to lead me all over California, I just didn’t know it yet.

Avenue of the Giants & Humboldt Redwoods State Park

As I exited the Mattole Road loop, I overrode the GPS and opted to get on State Hwy 254, the Avenue of the Giants, which is a scenic road that runs through Humboldt and past some of the most impressive redwood groves in California. This route isn’t as quick as hopping on Hwy 101 and heading south, but it is more than worth it. While you don’t have to exit your car to see these giants you can, and I opted for one short hike through Founders Grove just to get a feel for the park.  I wasn’t disappointed. Despite its easy accessibility, I was mostly alone again with the sounds of my footfalls, walking by the healthy giants and around downed ones. It was peaceful and serene, and if I didn’t know I was right off the highway, I’d have thought I was in the middle of nowhere.

In addition to beautiful redwood groves, Avenue of the Giants also takes you past two places where you can get one of those cheesy tourist pictures of your car driving through a redwood tree. I had several internal debates about whether I should take one of these photos. You probably have the sense that I’m not usually inclined to take cheesy tourist photos. That would be correct. They are really not my jam. But I was (am) also fairly obsessed with the redwoods, and it is difficult to get pictures that convey the sheer size of them. A picture of Princess driving through a tree, though? Well, that makes the size clear, doesn’t it? With that in mind, I exited Avenue of the Giants and stopped at Shrine Tree where, for the small sum of $10, I could take said picture.

There was no attendant at the tree entrance, so I had to deposit my cash in a box outside of the gate. I only had $3 on me. I backed up and started to leave when I realized that I also had quarters. Yes, I had a bag full of quarters. Why? Because every road trip blog you read says bring quarters, so I did. It just turns out that here I was, a full country and then some away from where I started and I hadn’t used them yet. I counted out 28 quarters, just enough money for the picture.  What the heck, I thought? I deposited my $3 and 28 quarters into the box and drove toward the tree.

It happened in stages.

First, the signs outside of the tree asked me to verify that Princess was under 7 feet by 7 feet and could safely drive through the tree. I gave it some thought, decided she was, and slowly drove forward.

As I entered the tree my driver’s side mirror touched the tree’s side. Deep breath. There were two options. I could back up, reposition the Jeep, and push in the mirror, or I could keep moving forward and see what happened. For reasons that continue to perplex me, I backed up.

That’s when the driver’s side mirror snapped, shearing off at the base and remaining connected to Princess only by the electrical wiring that controlled its movement. It turns out that the mirror hadn’t just touched the redwood, it had been firmly caught in the tree before I backed up.

As I looked at the mirror hanging limply by the side of the door, it occurred to me that had I kept going forward, the mirror would probably just have folded into the car on its own. There wasn’t much I could do about that now though. So I did the only thing I could. I folded the passenger side mirror in, rolled forward, and parked Princess half inside and half outside the tree, while I got out and took the cheesy tourist picture. At this point, if I was going to have to fix the mirror, I might as well make it worth it, right?

Just what is a cheesy tourist photo worth?

A thousand words? I’m not sure if that’s true. What I do know is that my picture of Princess going through the Shrine Drive-Thru tree is worth a lot more than the $3 and 28 quarters I paid to get it.

By my count, it can be valued at the following:

• Several hours of time lost sitting in a redwood grove shortly after the incident, not admiring the trees, but rather calling Jeep dealerships in the Bay Area to get an appointment to fix the mirror so I could continue heading to Big Sur and then to Baja California, Mexico in a few days.

• A full day of travel. I imagine that Point Reyes is beautiful and Muir Woods is inspiring, but I didn’t see either. I also missed the stretch of Hwy 1 from Mendocino south. Instead, I was up bright and early the day after the mirror broke on my way to the Jeep dealership in Fremont, California. I spent most of the morning and afternoon working with a lovely service rep named Jesus as we figured out where I could get the mirror fixed (they didn’t have the part in Fremont).

• At least one trip to Target post-Fremont dealership with my friend Juan. There we purchased a Conair mirror, zip ties, and packing tape to make a makeshift driver’s-side mirror that would hopefully get me to the Jeep dealership in Santa Monica. It turns out, the closest dealership with the part was in Santa Monica. Since I was heading in that direction anyway as I traveled through Big Sur, I made an appointment the following Monday. They assured me they had the part and would be ready to fix it when I got there. Problem solved, right? (Photos just in case you were interested in the mirror fix).

• An extra tank of gas and a diversion to Cathedral City, California (basically, Palm Springs), when the Santa Monica dealership called me an hour before the service appointment to let me know that they no longer had the replacement mirror and would need 2 to 3 more days to fix the Jeep. I suppose it is also worth a lot of frustration, some deep breathing, and a few expletives. Those expletives were not said to the Santa Monica folks, because at this moment really what was the point? They were spoken out loud to the universe because I had to say something before my head exploded. Also, for good measure, it was worth one distressed call to mom because, though she could do nothing, that felt appropriate as well.

• Several thank you’s to the sympathetic team at the Cathedral City Jeep Dealership who squeezed me in for the fix the same day the Santa Monica dealership cancelled. I called them from the road somewhere between Santa Barbara and Santa Monica and diverted to their direction. The next closest Jeep dealership with the part needed to fix the mirror was in Phoenix. Cathedral City Jeep was an absolute trip-saver. The photo is also worth some tears, because the Cathedral City folks were so nice and the Santa Monica folks had been such, well, let’s just say the opposite of nice, that I teared up with gratitude at their kindness when they squeezed me in.

• Finally, Princess’s drive through the redwood tree was worth $469 in repairs, and a thank you to the careful planning I did as I saved up for the sabbatical and this trip, which included things like emergency funds and a carefully cushioned budget.

For all that the cheesy photo cost, it also gave me a lot more.

If it hadn’t been for the photo and the resultant broken mirror, I wouldn’t have headed to the Bay Area a day early. While that means I might have seen some beautiful California sights, I would have missed catching up with Juan, who I hadn’t seen since 2008. As I said, I am sure that Point Reyes is beautiful, but no view there would have compared to the feeling of reconnecting and catching up with an old friend. Especially one who was gracious enough to meet me at the Fremont dealership and follow me to the place I was staying in Mountain View to ensure that there were no accidents along the way. Juan also had no qualms about making the run to Target and helping me build the makeshift mirror. Old friends, sometimes, are the best friends, and I’m thankful that I have a picture (or two) to remind me of that.

Without the broken mirror, I wouldn’t have met Jesus at the Fremont Dealership who went above and beyond to help me find the part and get an appointment at the Santa Monica dealership (it is not his fault that the Santa Monica dealership later sold the part). Nor would I have interacted with the Cathedral City team that brought me to tears. I won’t turn my nose up at the opportunity to see the good in people, it’s just as soothing to the soul as a year-long sabbatical or cross-country road trip. If it took a broken mirror and a cheesy photo for me see that type of goodness, well, so be it.

That broken mirror also gave me unanticipated gorgeous desert views. To and from Palm Springs I drove through the San Bernardino National Forest, winding around desert shrubs of all different colors, blackened fire-touched grounds, and dusty backdrops. Those views hadn’t been on my itinerary, but after seeing them, perhaps they should have been. I’m not upset about the detour.

Most importantly though, the broken mirror reminded me yet again to slow down. It forced a break in my travel schedule, slowing down my sight seeing for long stretches of waiting. Waiting in dealerships, waiting for cars to pass me so that I could safely get on the highway, waiting to get the mirror replaced because there was nothing more I could do to speed up the process. In that space, time opened for old friends, new stories, kind people.

I am not just referring to Juan and I fixing the mirror, or Jesus and the Cathedral City team’s kindness. That cheesy photo changed moments with friends I had planned to see at this point in the trip.

There were the pictures that my friend Alia and I took in front of Princess the morning I had planned to arrive to the Bay Area, trying to fit the funny makeshift mirror into the photo. There were jokes back and forth with my high school friend, Jeff, who lives in San Jose and who I was having dinner with before heading further south. There was the whole system that I developed with my life-long friend, Aimee, who met me in the Bay Area and joined me for the drive down to Big Sur. At each intersection and pull-out, she was on alert, turning to confirm the spacing of cars so I knew if it was safe to move. The absurdity of it all created moments and memories that layered themselves upon a lifetime of memories we already shared together.

That cheesy tourist photo had not just given me unanticipated moments, it had somehow deepened anticipated ones, giving us all a shared story on what up to that point had felt like my solo story across the country.

As I reflect on it all, it seems that what the broken mirror taught me is that it is not just the fixing that is important. It’s what we allow to happen to us and those around us on the way to fixing what is broken. It’s how we allow time and space and the best of people to give us a story, a perspective, a view that we couldn’t get even if we were 100% whole, driver’s side, passenger’s side, rearview mirrors fully intact.

Who knew a cheesy tourist photo and a broken mirror could give you all of that? A thousand words indeed.

**Please excuse all typos, grammatical errors, and other weird punctuation. Sometimes the light in Princess isn’t the best for proofing. Since this isn’t a legal brief, I’m just going to let it go until I get to a place where I can fix it.**