We took a three-week road trip around the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2017, and I am recounting our trip in a series of blog posts. You can read the previous posts here: Ashland, Portland, Bellingham, Vancouver, Seattle, Kalaloch, Pacific City, Eureka
Day 21: The Lost Coast
The story of the next two days of our road trip began when we met a fisherman named Rick at an oyster bar on our last evening in Eureka.
Humboldt Bay Provisions had come highly recommended by one of the Lost Coast bartenders, and even though Alex and I had reservations about eating oysters due to some bad mollusk-related experiences in the past, we soon understood why the restaurant was well-known in the area for this signature fare. We sat at the bar and enjoyed a bacchanalian feast of garlic-smothered oysters and beer, only coming up for air between slurps to carry on a lively conversation with the staff and local patrons. Not long after we arrived, an older gentleman sat near us at the end of the bar where he was greeted by the staff in a way that left no doubt that he was a regular. He introduced himself as Rick, offering us his large, calloused hand and a warm smile that stretched the windblown skin of his face. I liked him right away.
As I assume is only expected when you find yourself seated next to a man like Rick, we shut up and listened as he told us his life story. Years spent trying to make a living by fishing the fluctuant waters of the Northern California coastline had left Rick’s life in perpetual vacillation between struggle and stability. He had seen a lot of the best and worst sides of humanity in his lifetime. In the periodic times when Rick would have to pause his story to take a sip of beer or slurp down another oyster, we would seize the opportunity to tell him about our road trip. When Rick learned that we were heading for Carmel the next day, he implored us to make a detour along the way to visit the real Lost Coast.
Alex and I being only casually familiar with the various nicknames associated with this part of California, we had assumed that “The Lost Coast” was just an all-encompassing term for the general geographic area of Mendocino and Humboldt counties. Rick set us straight and explained that The Lost Coast is actually the proper name of a remote coastal wilderness area that has been left largely untouched by modern development. Rick told us that our planned route to Carmel would be taking us right past the exit for the route to The Lost Coast, but the detour would add at least three hours to our trip. Our hesitation was further fueled by Rick’s insistence that we not rely on GPS to find our way there since cell service is spotty and unreliable. Before calling it a night, I politely wrote down Rick’s verbal directions in my phone while simultaneously thinking to myself, “There is NO WAY we are driving three GPS-less hours into the wilderness on the recommendation of a drunk fisherman. This is not The Goonies.”
As we were packing the next morning, Alex and I had an offhand discussion about taking Rick’s suggestion of visiting The Lost Coast. The notion was quickly and amicably dismissed as we found all kinds of practical reasons why it would be a bad idea to make such a detour.
Looking back now, I think we both thought the other didn’t want to go, and instead of voicing our own curiosity we conceded our own desires in favor of keeping the peace. For my own part, there was also no way of knowing how “worth it” the whole adventure would be and after the drama of our car theft, I didn’t want to be the one to force us into an unpredictable situation. I was sure that Alex wasn’t on board, so I didn’t push it.
It is no secret that being in an intimate relationship with one person for a long time inevitably breeds fewer opportunities to surprise each other. Alex and I know each other’s preferences and can predict, with reliable certainty, how the other will react in any given situation. I know that he doesn’t like restaurants that make you cook your own food, and he knows that I have a strong disdain for encores at any live music event (JUST PLAY THE SONG IF YOU WANT TO PLAY IT. DON’T MAKE US BEG FOR IT). When you first fall in love, discovering your partner’s identity is a frequent source of delight and intrigue. If you stay together long enough, the frequency of these discoveries slows and eventually, that state of perpetual revelation is replaced by the comfortable predictability that is essential to a sustainable relationship. In this comfortable state, surprises are rare. And like any rare thing, they are extra special.
I say all of this to explain why, as Alex unexpectedly turned our car off the highway and towards The Lost Coast that day, my heart swelled with long-dormant feelings of discovery and surprise. I had underestimated my husband’s thirst for adventure as he, in opposite fashion, knew I was more curious than I was willing to admit.
For the next ninety minutes, Alex navigated our car slowly over a narrow, semi-paved road through forty-one miles of hills and valleys on our way to The Lost Coast. The scenery around us was powerfully striking. The morning fog, grey and heavy, allowed us blurry glimpses of yellow hillsides dotted with livestock and dilapidated farmhouses. At one point, we traveled through a verdant forest that was so beautiful it made us gasp. We were in perpetual awe of the landscape.
We didn’t see more than a couple other cars on the route, and we soon understood why. For all of Rick’s proselytizing, he had neglected to mention how much the nature of the road itself contributed to The Lost Coast’s isolated character. Every so often we would need to navigate over a collection of half-buried rocks in our path. Even though Alex was skilled at taking it slow, sometimes an alarmingly loud BANG would emanate from the undercarriage of our car. In these moments, Alex and I would look at each other with worried expressions that plainly said: that sounded bad. After a while, I took to burying my head in my hands and laugh-muttering “this better be good” to myself.
Navigating with only a dirt road, sparse signage, and the faint memory of Rick’s slurred directions, we settled into a hopeful silence as the time stretched on.
Eventually, the valleys receded to reveal The Lost Coast. It was breathtaking. The rocky outcroppings of the coastline were largely hidden behind a thin blanket of grey fog that would recede in waves as we drove. In this way, the character of The Lost Coast was revealed to us in manageable pieces, which was fortunate. Taking it all in at once would have been overpowering.
Walking on the sand that day felt like stepping onto another planet. I was in awe of the pristine isolation, the emptiness, the silence. We had come so far to see this place, and the journey itself felt like paying a long-overdue homage. I thought I knew what it meant to love California. Before that day, my affection for my home state originated from a place of comfortable predictability, but The Lost Coast showed me that I could still be surprised by a place I thought I knew so well.
Next stop: Santa Rosa
