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I live in Northern California about 90 miles from the Oregon border. When gas was less expensive I would get out the map and pick a location here that I wanted to see. I live on the coast in Humboldt county, one day we drove south to the Lost Coast highway, it was an all day drive. Another drive I made was east on 299 to highway 3 and north to Yreka at Interstate 5 and back south towards Redding and back home on 299, that was a 473 mile drive done in one day also. I did that trip so that I could see Mount Shasta from the north. It is impressive at over 14,000 feet high and over 13,000 of it rises from the valley floor. There are many quaint towns around here; along 299 are Salyer, Hawkins Bar, Willow Creek, Trinity Village, Del Loma, Big Bar, Junction City, Weaverville and Shasta. There are a few small towns along I-5 that have beautiful views of Mount Shasta ; Dunsmuir, Mount Shasta, Weed, Grenada and then Yreka. All of these towns are very small. It takes about 7 hours to get from Bakersfield to Redding on I-5 with the speed limit at 70 mph. Now that the price of gas is down, we may resume our weekend trips and explore more of our area.
A week plus a weekend. We will probably leave the L.A. area on a Saturday morning and come back the Sunday night of the following week. But that's flexible. If we have less on the itinerary, we come back sooner; if we have more, it won't kill us to miss an extra day or two of work/school.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
You might drive NE on I-15 to Baker, CA, thence north on CA 127, through Shoshone, CA to find your way through Death Valley National Park.
I had originally considered going to Death Valley; a friend of mine who had been there said it wasn't that great. So I'm debating. It is actually scenic there, or is it one of those places you go just for the fascination of saying you've been to the lowest point in the U.S.?
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Originally Posted by Idunn
The Mad Greek Restaurant in Baker is supposed to be very good.
We ate lunch there the first time I took my wife to Vegas. It was decent. I've had comparable Greek food here for cheaper, though.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
You can climb steeply out of the Park, through Panamint Springs, CA to join US 395. It is an interesting and scenic drive north. You might turn left onto CA 120 at Lee Vining, CA to traverse Yosemite National Park. Absolutely gorgeous, of course. On the far side of the Park you can detour to visit the incredibly beautiful Yosemite Valley, only be prepared for the many tourists and congestion.
I had thought about traveling through Yosemite on this route and then looping back through Sacramento and Tahoe to catch Lassen and whatever else we want to see in northeastern CA... but depending on when we go, this road could be closed. I've heard that based on snow conditions, they sometimes don't open it up until late May or early June.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
An interesting sojourn from Yosemite would be to continue west on CA 120, thence north on CA 49. This takes you through the heart of the California gold country.
I seem to remember going through that area as a kid and probably panning for fake gold somewhere (then again, the gold panning part could have happened down here at Knott's Berry farm), but it's been so long that it'd probably be worth visiting that area again.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
It would be an interesting and historic drive all the way to the junction with US 50 and thence quickly into Sacramento, CA. If in Sacramento, by the way, a visit to Old Sacramento (on the river) could be pleasant.
Is that a good place for an evening walk and/or a nice dinner?
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Originally Posted by Idunn
At Angels Camp you might opt to turn right and head east on CA 4. It is a beautiful mountain drive that can take you eventually into South Lake Tahoe, CA. Know that the section of CA 4 over Ebbetts Pass is narrow and winding, but that can very much be part of its charm.
That could be fun. Compared to some roads we've driven in Hawaii, the windy stuff shouldn't faze us as long as the road has at least one lane in both directions.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
If you have the time and inclination a short hike down to the shores of Lake Tahoe and fairy tale residence of Vikingsholm would not be amiss.
That definitely sounds intriguing; I'll have to look up more information on that.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
Your notion to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park is a good one. A beautiful, relatively quiet, Park whose thermal features make it quite interesting.
I remember going through there in my early teens and noting that it was quite beautiful. I figure it'll serve as a good counterpoint to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which my wife and I visited a few years ago - I've seen the volcanoes in her home state, now she gets to see some of the volcanoes in mine.
Unfortunately, the thing I remember most about Lassen is that right outside the park is where my mom hit a deer. So I need some new memories of the place. We'll make sure not to drive through the area anywhere near twilight.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
From Sacramento, traveling up CA 49 would be a nice way to get there. If from near Lake Tahoe, taking CA 89 through Sierraville, CA would be a good option. If so inclined, there is also a laid back, commercial hot spring just outside Sierraville.
I'm cool with that, as long as it's not one of those clothing-optional ones. My wife and I stopped in Glenwood Springs, Colorado on our road trip this past summer, and really enjoyed the massive hot spring pool there.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
Redwood National Park would also probably be nice (I only drove past/through). Isolated, however.
I can handle isolated. I'm sure it'll be nothing compared to 7 hours on a rickety old tour bus in Denali two summers ago.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
Your best bet from Lassen is straight through Redding, CA to continue west on CA 299, all the way to Arcata, CA on the coast. Just know that although a lovely drive, you might begin to wonder if you will ever get to the ocean.
I discovered on our road trip this year that my wife isn't a big fan of long days in the car. I don't mind 'em so much, as I'm the one who does all the driving, so there's more for me to "do" in that sense. But we're trying to plan this trip so that none of our "travel days" take more than 3-4 hours, except for maybe the first and last day since we're planning on bypassing the southern parts of the state that we've already seen. We'll try to spend the night in places that are good stopover points to keep our drive times in between to a minimum (thus leaving more time and energy to explore the places we spend each night in).
A drive across the top of California from east to west can't be that long, right? I mean, compared to taking the I-40 east into Arizona or the I-15 out of Salt Lake down towards Bryce and Zion (both extremely long, dry, and boring stretches of road), this has got to be no big deal.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
Other than that, and some minor options, your best bet probably to press on west until reaching Arcata and Eureka, CA.
I've heard briefly about both towns and they seem like interesting "North Coast" places.
I've also heard that there is a stretch of "Lost Coast" away from the 101 that is difficult to get to, but interesting in its own right. Is any of that area worth a detour?
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Originally Posted by Idunn
Even if this seems perhaps a bridge too far, since you're already up in the far northwestern corner of California, you might venture a bit farther north to visit Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon.
I've been there before (did lots of road trips up into OR and WA as a kid since my mom is from Salem and we had a great aunt and uncle just up past Olympia) - my mom still has a picture of me and my brother standing on a patch of un-melted snow at Crater Lake in August. Good times. I didn't realize it was within such easy reach of far northern CA, though. My wife's never been to Oregon; I've been looking for an excuse to take her up that way, but I wasn't sure if this trip would be the right time for it.
I will definitely map some of the places and routes you've named to see if they're feasible for our trip. Most likely there's more to do here than there is time for us to do it... but that's part of the fun of roadtrips. I want to plan our overnight waypoints and major destinations ahead of time, but leave room for whatever unknowns we might spot from the highway en route to those destinations.
When gas was less expensive I would get out the map and pick a location here that I wanted to see.
Gas prices appear to have dropped precipitously, so hopefully they'll stay low until our trip and beyond. Regardless, if I want to go on a road trip, I just go. We went on our 12-day trip this summer seemingly at the height of the bad gas prices - I figured that even if it were $5 a gallon (it never got that bad) and we used a full tank a day (we didn't), 12 full days of driving would still cost us less than plane tickets to one or two cities and then having to rent a car there. It takes more time, but I still prefer driving whenever possible. (Trips to visit the in-laws in Hawaii get all the flying out of my system that I could ever want to do.)
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Originally Posted by Idunn
I live on the coast in Humboldt county, one day we drove south to the Lost Coast highway, it was an all day drive.
What's there to do/see in that area?
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Originally Posted by Idunn
Another drive I made was east on 299 to highway 3 and north to Yreka at Interstate 5 and back south towards Redding and back home on 299, that was a 473 mile drive done in one day also. I did that trip so that I could see Mount Shasta from the north. It is impressive at over 14,000 feet high and over 13,000 of it rises from the valley floor.
I definitely want to explore the Shasta area, but aside from seeing the mountain and lakes from different angles, I wasn't sure what one would do there. This is another place where knowledge of a good hiking trail, or at the very least a scenic spot to stop for a picnic, might come in handy.
Since you mentioned Weed, I have to bring up this perennial favorite photo:
It's not mine and I know it's made the Internet rounds a bazillion times, but it still makes me laugh.
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Originally Posted by Idunn
It takes about 7 hours to get from Bakersfield to Redding on I-5 with the speed limit at 70 mph.
I guess that means closer to 6 with the actual flow of traffic going closer to 80! I've driven the stretch of the I-5 through the central valley as far north as Tracy more than enough times to know how boring that is. (Though I still contend that I-15 in Utah is twice as dull.) It's the efficient route from L.A. to the Bay Area, but since our intent here is to have shorter drive times per day and make sure we see what's interesting along the way, I figure we can take 15 and 395 to get up there, and maybe 101 back down on the final leg of the trip. (I'm already familiar with the stretch of the 101 from SLO down to L.A., but either way I'll have to take a route I've taken before, so that seems to be the optimal way to do it and not get so bored.)
It's too bad we're not traveling in July, or we'd definitely stop at the Garlic Festival in Gilroy. I love driving through that town - the smell of garlic on the way through makes the scary drive over the mountains (which we often end up doing on a Friday night whenever we go to the Bay Area) worth it. I vastly prefer that route to the 580.
Gas prices appear to have dropped precipitously, so hopefully they'll stay low until our trip and beyond. Regardless, if I want to go on a road trip, I just go. We went on our 12-day trip this summer seemingly at the height of the bad gas prices - I figured that even if it were $5 a gallon (it never got that bad) and we used a full tank a day (we didn't), 12 full days of driving would still cost us less than plane tickets to one or two cities and then having to rent a car there. It takes more time, but I still prefer driving whenever possible. (Trips to visit the in-laws in Hawaii get all the flying out of my system that I could ever want to do.)
What's there to do/see in that area?
I definitely want to explore the Shasta area, but aside from seeing the mountain and lakes from different angles, I wasn't sure what one would do there. This is another place where knowledge of a good hiking trail, or at the very least a scenic spot to stop for a picnic, might come in handy.
Since you mentioned Weed, I have to bring up this perennial favorite photo:
It's not mine and I know it's made the Internet rounds a bazillion times, but it still makes me laugh.
I guess that means closer to 6 with the actual flow of traffic going closer to 80! I've driven the stretch of the I-5 through the central valley as far north as Tracy more than enough times to know how boring that is. (Though I still contend that I-15 in Utah is twice as dull.) It's the efficient route from L.A. to the Bay Area, but since our intent here is to have shorter drive times per day and make sure we see what's interesting along the way, I figure we can take 15 and 395 to get up there, and maybe 101 back down on the final leg of the trip. (I'm already familiar with the stretch of the 101 from SLO down to L.A., but either way I'll have to take a route I've taken before, so that seems to be the optimal way to do it and not get so bored.)
It's too bad we're not traveling in July, or we'd definitely stop at the Garlic Festival in Gilroy. I love driving through that town - the smell of garlic on the way through makes the scary drive over the mountains (which we often end up doing on a Friday night whenever we go to the Bay Area) worth it. I vastly prefer that route to the 580.
Idunn did not take the trip on 299 to 3 to I-5 to Redding and back, I did. Just thought I would point that out. I was also the one who made the trip from Bakersfield to Redding.
I made a trip from here near Eureka to Yosemite in late September, the price of gas here was $4.19 for regular then and it cost me over $180 for the 1000 mile round trip. The same trip now would only cost $80 for gas.
Excellent and spot on suggestions all, however from Truckee you hit 80, not 50.
Good thing the trip isn't on for now, we're getting some great snow right now in the region. White Christmas time!
Yeah, I would hate for us to get stuck in the snow and end up having to eat each other. (This tasteless joke is indicative of the fact that I was taken to the Donner museum or whatever it's called when I was a kid. I was seriously disturbed for days after that.)
I was going to suggest that if you made it all the way to Lassen Park and Burney Falls that you take a trip on the McCloud River Railway. The Railroad until recently operated tourist excursion trains that traced about 1/2 of the base of Mount Shasta. However, I just did a web search, and it appears that the McCloud RR closed for good this fall, and the tracks are being torn up. A terrible loss of a unique short haul line.
Since that is now off the agenda, if you make it that far north I would like to suggest the Calatrava Foot Bridge in Redding if you are stopping there for services. The Piedmont Restaurant in Mount Shasta. I don't know if the restaurant is actually so good that it warrants a special trip, but I remember that it was THE place to eat when I was a kid and if you are in Mt Shasta, why not? And finally, on the trip up I-5 between Redding and Mount Shasta, definitely take some time to stop and admire Castle Crags. They are an exquisite granite formation at the crux of the Sierras and Cascades.
Oh, and one last thing. If Gothic style automobile bridges from the 1920s are your thing, check out Dog Creek Bridge.
And one LAST last thing, if you ever become the sort of people who go camping, another whole list of places will open up to you.
I don't mind the "rustic-ness" of camping, but I'm no good when it comes to pitching a tent, so I tend to only go camping in large groups where there are guaranteed to be enough people who know what they're doing to show us the ropes.
When my wife and I travel on our own, lodging for us tends to be a combination of Bed & Breakfasts, motels, and friends' houses.
a. Is it (Death Valley) scenic/worth visiting?
Yes. However if your notion of scenery includes lots of trees and water, definitely not. But if drawn at all to deserts it can be beautiful and enticing. In some respects otherworldly. And you may appreciate the relative isolation and quiet.
b. Can we drive across Yosemite?
Tioga Pass, and the route across Yosemite is closed in winter, its opening date in spring dependent on the amount of snow. So check in advance to insure it is open. The same applies to CA 4 over Ebbetts Pass. Carson Pass on CA 88 is the first all season route over the Sierra Nevada you will come to. That and US 50, and of course I-80, are all options. But a fair chance Tioga will be open by then, and a marvelous drive. And, yes, I was in error: I meant I-80 north of Lake Tahoe, not US 50, which is at its southern tip.
c. Is Old Sacramento a nice place for dinner?
Yes. Sandwiched between I-5 and the Sacramento River, Old Sacramento is comprised of several blocks of authentic old victorian buildings very much reminiscent of early California. A favorite of tourists, it offers many fine options in restaurants. Also a nice place for an intriguing stroll. For one thing a very good railroad museum is located there, also a statue marking the western terminus of the storied Pony Express route. As I recall, this directly in front of the historic Wells Fargo Bank building.
d. (CA 4) could be fun.
Absolutely. But know the better part of it from beyond Lake Alpine over the pass is narrow enough that they have dispensed with any center line markings. Just as well as it is redundant, and still enough width for two vehicles to pass easily in opposing directions. Those that don't like mountain driving probably won't like it, those that do may love it.
e. Vikingsholm.
The California State Park service maintains this historic residence, and offers tours through it for a nominal fee. A bit of a walk to get there, but not extreme. There is a parking lot and sign directly off the highway (this the trailhead). If so inclined, it is a beautifully crafted, enchanting residence in a fabulous location.
f. Clothing optional (Sierraville)?
Yes. But if interested you might inquire if some pools allow only swimwear. Not sure.
g. It can't be that long, right?
Well . . .
It is feasible to break such a trip up into smaller segments. For instance the drive from Redding, CA to Arcata, CA is probably under 4 hours (only it just seemed longer). If you stayed in Death Valley the first night then the drive from LA wouldn't be all that long. Not to mention more places you may wish to stop than time for. And a good deal of northern California is beautiful (much of central valley not recommended). However California is a very large state, particularly north to south, and after such an excursion you'll likely appreciate that all the more.
h. The 'Lost Coast?'
I'm not well versed on far northwestern California. It can be beautiful, particularly a place such as Redwood National Park. Arcata might prove interesting; if not dark and otherwise moving on, I would have looked at it closer. It is all mountainous terrain. If driving from Redding, CA to Arcata, then you can determine how much enthusiasm remaining for the 'Lost Coast' and other such excursions.
i. Crater Lake?
Relatively speaking it's not that much farther, once in northwest California. For a road warrior, anyway. By then you may have a better idea of how far is too far, such things tend to work themselves out in the moment. If looking for a quick and easy return to SoCal, I-5 is it. Just don't expect a lot of great scenery. And from Arcata, sorry, that region is the definition of isolated. A bit of an excursion to get to I-5 or anything else fast . . . so might as well venture on into Oregon.
The road into Lassen Park is plowed on Memorial Day weekend. But if there was alot of snow that winter, some of the trails and other roads may not be open. On highway 44 from Susanville, there is the Hat Creek Rim Outlook. It is just outside of Old Station. There are telescope view finders. On a clear day you can see Shasta to the left and Lassen to the right. Once you get to Old Station, you can visit the Lava Tube Caves. Bring a flash light and wear sneakers. It doesn't take long to go through there. Take wintergreen lifesavers with you. When you are in the caves and it is pitch black, turn off your flashlights. Put a wintergreen life saver in the back of your mouth and crunch down on it with your mouth open. If you do it hard enough, it will make a spark. It is a huge hit with my kids.
I saw someone else posted about Burney Falls, that is a great area. Also, the MC Cloud Falls are great too. Lots of hiking there. Be watchful for poison oak.
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A terrible loss of a unique short haul line.
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