Pacific Coast Explorer
Archers Direct, May-June 2011
Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15We woke to another grey morning (not uncommon in this area), but a nice late 8am bags, 9am bus start. We had time to enjoy the included free breakfast , feasting on cereals, muffins, doughnuts, yoghurt, boiled eggs, waffles, toast, coffee and fruit juice. Pretty good, but a little crowded, so we spread out into the pool/patio area, where we'd played pool the night before. The first stop of the day was the Thomas H Kuchel Visitor Center,
which had a small information station, store, some leaflets, restrooms and, oh yeah, nearly forgot, a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean. On the good side, it wasn't raining and it wasn't too cold, despite the grey skies. Overall, it's a little lightweight as Visitor's Centers go, but it wasn't bad.
Then it was off to see more redwoods. As we were driving away from the Visitor Center, we spotted a few elk, so we drove up for a closer look. Tick that off in the I-Spy book of touring.
We got off Highway 101 to stop at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park to see some more redwoods before heading to Cal Barrel Scenic Road. We made our final California stop at Big Tree (can't imagine how they come up with these names!) We went for a tramp in the woods, but he objected, so we took a walk on the Circle Trail instead. [Yes, the old ones are the old ones.] Well, I suppose they're not wrong, it is a big tree. It's 304 feet high, 21.6 feet diameter and 1500 years old (that's even older than Paul!) Once we were done, we got back on the bus to head north to a new state for me, Oregon.
Our lunch stop was in Brookings, Oregon where we stopped next to a Fred Meyer Supermarket. We bought some Hershey chocolate to take home, and Paul bought me an American flag.
I was chatting with Johnny, our driver, about the bus. It seems it is made everywhere - the engine is from Detroit, the tyres are made by Firestone, the seats come from Mexico, the windows from Finland and the whole thing is assembled in Holland. Surprising, isn't it? What do you mean, so? This is cutting edge journalism, I'll have you know. The story gets better - the bus was imported by a company in Florida so the current company had to send a driver over there to drive it back to California. The engine is huge, with the gas tank holding 231 gallons and it does between 6 and 8 miles to the gallon (that's US gallons, they're smaller than UK ones). At the time we travelled, it was costing about $750 to fill the tank. The engine only lasts for a million miles and the bus costs about $500, 000 to buy. No wonder bus travel isn't as cheap as it used to be!
You can wake up now. I'm back to the nice views. We next stopped at a nice pretty cove on the Oregon Coast Trail. There was a great view of the Pacific from here. I spotted a cool bridge on the way too.
Our next stop was a cranberry one. Ocean Spray cranberries come from Bandon
and I hear it is the home of the Cranberry Festival, which celebrated it's 65th annual event in 2011. Bandon is not a big town, but it's a nice little place. There's a good candy and sweet shop, with lots of free samples, a selection of soaps and other smelly stuff. We had a wander across the road to take a look at the views before finding another gift shop with more t-shirts, preserves and similar cheap (and not so cheap) tourist tat. Not that I'm adverse to buying a little tourist tat.
We set off to see the Coquille Lighthouse which is on the Coquille River. It has been there since the 1890s and was restored in the 1970s, with the addition of solar power.
Then we got on the bus to go to Coos Bay, our overnight stop. We left Bandon via the Tsunami Evacuation Route. Jose said that since the Thailand and Japanese tsunamis, America is taking potential tsunamis more seriously. In the 1970s, Californians would have gone to the beach to witness the Big One but times change.
Coos Bay is a centre for lumber and ship-building. It is Oregon's main passage to the sea and is named after a local Native American tribe, the Coos. Our hotel for the night is the Red Lion Hotel
There was no red carpet here! We took a look at the restaurant but they only had non-veggie food, so we decided to take up Johnny's offer of a lift down to the local casino.
We headed for the Plank House Restaurant, which is part of The Mill Casino. As we headed in, we'd met others of our group who had been turned away with a long wait (maybe there was a lot of them?) but we were seated straight away, although it was quite busy. There was a great view of the river. On the way to our table we had to pass the dessert table - wow! They were pretty big portions. The guy showing us to our seats said they'd be happy to pack up a dessert to go (sheesh, we weren't even at our table yet.)
At the table I studied the long wine list (makes a change from 'merlot or cabernet.') We decided to skip the $150 Robert Mondavi Premium Reserve and opted for a local $22 bottle. Once again, Di had food choices! She went for a garden burger with mushrooms and onions. We even opted for a cheesy garlic bread appetizer - six pieces, with marinara sauce! Yum. Sadly, we were too full for dessert (again), however wonderful-looking. As we'd been told that the $5 breakfast tomorrow was now free, there was no excuse to take home a dessert for breakfast either. Darn!