From Bend to McKinleyville

A Chronicle of our Drive to Northern California

It’s a nine hour drive from Bend, Oregon to McKinleyville, California (our current location) if you go directly west to Florence, then hit the 101 headed south. That’s totally doable in one day. But why rush? Plus, my beloved likes to shoot video of our journey … a lot of video. Great cinematography takes time. Ha ha!

Florence, Oregon

Our first stop was the coastal town of Florence, and we arrived just in time for lunch! After enjoying some local food at a restaurant on a charming street near the waterfront we headed north on the 101 to see the Heceta Head Lighthouse.

The lighthouse is one of the most photographed on the coast. The light on the 56-foot tower was first lit in 1894. It is now an automated beacon, seen 21 miles from land, and is rated as the strongest light on the Oregon coast.

Sunset Bay State Park

Back on road, we set a course south for Sunset Bay State Park. I had reserved a spot at the Sunset Bay Campground months in advance. Once I realized that camping opened up a lot of affordable overnight options, I took advantage of it. The downside is no bed, no shower and no restaurants. However, we experience some of the most beautiful scenery when we get off the main road.

Listen to the sounds of Sunset Bay…

The campground was overflowing with families, and particularly children on bicycles. Each site has a certain amount of privacy due to the extremely green and plentiful foliage, but that does nothing for the noise level. This would become very apparent around 10pm.

After setting up our tent we grabbed our chairs and headed to the beach to catch the sunset. After that we went to bed. At some point in the night I lay there listening to some very awful noises coming from a man a few sites down from us. He needs to visit an ears, nose, throat doctor ASAP.

Botanical Gardens at Shore Acres State Park

As soon as we packed up, we drove less than a mile to visit a very beautiful botanical garden. The park ranger encouraged us to visit and I’m glad we did. There were so many varieties of roses. It was a beautiful and quiet place to spend time on a Sunday morning.

Sisters Rock

We continued south on the 101 toward California. We decided to pull over to check out Sisters Rocks, which are three big rocks, one of which has a sea cave that is fed by three entrance passages on the other side of the rock. Of course Dale had to take quite a bit of video of this. We spent over an hour exploring before moving on.

California!

We crossed over the state line into California late afternoon. At the state line we were stopped and asked if we had any fruits, vegetables and some other items before we were allowed into the state. What the heck! The only other time I’ve experienced is when I went to Hawaii.

We soon began driving through beautiful Redwood Forests, but we kept our stops to a minimum because we needed to get to our next Airbnb and get moved in. Dale had work the next morning. But, we couldn’t help by stop to see Paul Bunyan!