Oh boy, are we behind on updating you all! We have put down quite a few miles under this bus since we left Salt Lake City. From there, we had a 6 hour drive to Elko, Nevada and another 4 on to Reno, and then this last Saturday, we did 8 more hours to Eureka, CA. It's been a bit of a whirlwind of meetings, travel planning, selling trucks, weather watching, and even a little bit of sight seeing!
We ended up spending three nights in Salt Lake. The weather was amazing and the park we were in was the nicest we've been in thus far, so we decided to just to stay and knock out some work. On Thursday, we took off back south to Elko, NV where we had a meeting on Friday morning. Elko was an interesting little town full of gold mines and casinos. Like so many other towns we've visited out west, it was located smack dab in a valley so the scenery was quite pretty.
The distributors we are meeting out west all have some really unique challenges. From terrain to local legalities to the cost of repairs, we are learning a lot about a variety of variables that they are dealing with, thus enabling us to better serve them in the long run.
We were only planning to spend one night in Reno before heading into California, but we ran into our first real weather related delay. Winds were forecasted over 40mph and snow was expected on the pass we were planning to take the next day so we ended up hanging out in Reno for night number two. Too bad we aren't gamblers or this may have been more of a treat! As it was, with the wind and rain, it was a pretty low key day for us. We got up at 5:00 am on Saturday and got on the road towards the California coast.
Our route took us up to Redding, through some beautiful natural forests. We got our first glimpse of the redwoods and into our first really hairy driving situation in the bus. Highway 299 from Redding into Eureka is the better part of 200 miles of twisting and turning mountain roads. With frequent rockslides, much of the roadway is generally under some sort of reconstruction and shortly after we got out of Redding, we realized that we were in for a little, 65 feet of fun, off-roading. Literally, for a stretch of 4-5 miles the road was one lane and dirt. Imagine our 45 foot bus, towing a Jeep, winding up around a mountain, on a dirt road. We didn't run into any real problems, but needless to say, Jeff earned some new driving stripes that day!
At first glimpse, Eureka was a quirky little seaside town on the Pacific. As we entered the county, Jeff recalled hearing about how this county was notorious for it's underground marijuana growing culture. We found a documentary on YouTube called "One Good Year" that taught us a lot about our home for the next three nights! Perhaps, even a bit more than we would have liked to have known, but it was interesting to learn about and then see first hand the influence that weed has had on their economy and culture.
Our customer in Eureka has some real logistic issues that we've been working with him on for over a year, so it was definitely on the short list of "to do" stops. It was great to meet him face to face and to get a broader understanding of the challenges they are facing with California load length laws, lack of nearby repair facilities, and carb compliance issues.
The highlight of the last week and a half though was our Sunday spent among the redwoods along the Avenue of Giants in southern Humboldt County. Seeing the majestic trees were on Jeff's bucket list so he woke up like a kid on Christmas morning! Though it was overcast and quite misty, we loaded up in the car and made the 45 minute drive south to the north entrance of the parkway. A short way in, we found a trail marker and took off on a short walk amongst the trees.
As soon as I got out of the car, it was like the forest just ran out to hug me. While I've spent some time in the woods since my move to Florida ten years ago, I haven't been in a proper forest and I instantly regretted that fact. The smell of the wet foliage and cool mountain air was like an old friend and suddenly I was as excited as Jeff to be there. It brought back so many memories of hiking and camping in the mountains of NC that had long been buried by the sun, sand and my life in Florida.
The Avenue of Giants is about a 30 mile two lane parkway through the heart of a huge red wood forest alongside the Bull River. Of course the size of the trees is the first thing you notice, but as we drove on, the sheer number of them became almost overwhelming. They just go on and on and on and this was just one of a dozen or more forests like this in the area. We made several stops along the route to admire the scenery and one for Jeff to actually drive through a tree! We saw a tree that had survived a major flood in 1964 and an attempt to cut it down in the early 1900’s. We also saw a Chimney Tree, which had been hollowed out from a fire, but almost miraculously has remained alive for close to a hundred years.
The day was likely the highlight of our trip thus far. We’ve been so in awe of God’s creative hand as we have traveled and this region is further proof of how thoughtful He was in creating our great planet.
We are now heading towards Bend, Oregon, where we will spend the remainder of the week. We need a few days of just work and have heard great things about Bend, with a neighbor from the campground in Durango calling it a “mini Portland”. We have a customer there that we’ll see later in the week and then next week we’ll have stops in Roseburg and Albany before we actually start heading north towards Portland.