With just ten days left in the trip, I finally left California this afternoon and headed into Oregon. The past few days have been unlike most of the rest of my trip. I’ve been on my own, I’ve been doing a lot of driving, and I’ve been staying in basic hotels instead of with friends or family. Tonight is a bit of an exception, as I am staying at my uncle’s brother’s house in Grants Pass. Just a few minutes ago I noticed that my hotel booking for tomorrow night is actually for sometime next month. Now I am on hold with the booking agency to fix the reservation.

After tomorrow, though, my trip returns to less driving and more seeing friends. I will be spending several days in Portland and then Seattle before flying home a week from Monday. I don’t have any grand revelations to look back on, but I can say that so far the trip has been good.

I’ve learned that I am always looking to the next thing. I usually can’t just sit still and I pack my days as full as I can. I suppose it’s some form of FOMO, that I don’t want to miss anything in the precious little time I have in each place. But I’ve also learned the opposite side, where packing in too much means that I don’t enjoy what I’m doing. Over the weeks, I think I have found the right balance. I need daily time to recharge, even though this whole trip is intended to be a time to recharge. I’ve also learned that Bluetooth speakers are really great at playing soft music before I go to sleep.

I’m writing this all as if my trip is over but I still have roughly a quarter of it left. Some people have told me that I am never going to want to return to Boston or go back to work. I don’t think that’s true. If I needed to go back to work tomorrow, I could, with little regret. As it so happens, I don’t need to go back to work tomorrow, and I will continue to enjoy this time off until I do. But as much as I like this travel—seeing new places and reconnecting with old friends—I do like having some sort of routine. Being away for so long helps put that all into context.

I miss my cat, and I look forward to seeing here again when I get back to Boston. (I do know that she is in very good hands, though, with my friends, who have built her an excellent box fort). I forget what it feels like to drive my car rather than the rental Ford Fusion. I kind of forget my room and my desk and my shower and the feel of my bed. I remember the walk to work, but actually doing work feels so distant in the past now.

I think my not working was what originally drove me to pack my days full of too many things. I always like to have a goal, something to be working towards. When I stopped working, I channeled that energy into planning my trip (which I did very little of beforehand). It took a good 3+ weeks before I realized that I was overdoing it. I’m in a good state now and I can keep that up for a while longer, but eventually I’ll want something to focus my efforts on. So I’ll be glad to return to Boston for that reason.

I’m not yet sure what I’ll be doing when I return to work, but I’m sure it will be something good. Until then, I will continue eating ice cream everyday, reconnecting with friends, spending time reflecting, and enjoying the great outdoors. Come to think of it, there’s no reason I can’t do all those things back in Boston, too.

Oh, the booking agency called back. I’m all good for tomorrow.

Sorry.

The forrest moon of Endor.

Departing my hotel just after 9am, I returned to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park to hike Zigzag Trail 1 and 2 Loop. The reviews on Alltrails said that there were snails but I didn’t see any—just some banana slugs. There was almost no one on the trail. I ran into one couple taking photos at the beginning and then a small group being led by a guide about a quarter way into the hike.

Crossing into Northern California, the signs at the beginning of trails began to warn of bears instead of mountain lions. The signs also recommend not to hike alone. So I had my hiking poles and Bluetooth speaker to alert any potential predator of my existence so that I don’t startle them.

Having learned a few days ago that driving through the winding roads of redwood forest is more interesting while listening to John Williams, I was playing the Return of the Jedi soundtrack as I started on the trail. Normally, I dislike any music on the trail—it takes away from the nature—but I made an exception since I was on my own. It worked out quite well, since it looked exactly like the Endor in the movie. I later looked up that the movie actually was filmed in the Redwood National Park.

If it’s possible, this area is greener than any other area I’ve seen so far on this trip. The greens were really GREEN. And the trees were really BIG.

I finished the hike faster than I expected at just over two hours. So I drove to some other areas of the park that had gotten a bit more populated later in the morning. I came across the “big tree” and asked an older couple to take my photo.

Tomorrow I head back to the coast to Yachats, where I was planning on another hike. The forecast, though, calls for more rain, so we will see…

I crossed into Northern California last night and realized that it is cold here. So far, it’s been cloudy or rainy in the mid-fifties. OK, so perhaps cold is a relative term here. I was getting used to nonstop sun in the mid-seventies.

Tonight I will be rather brief. I am writing now standing in the bathroom at a Holiday Inn Express at an Indian Casino in Klamath. There is no cell service and the wifi is extremely spotty. It’s 7:45pm and I’m glad I ate in Eureka because there’s nothing here open after 8.

My day started out at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens. Beyond the typical cultivations of a botanical garden, they also had several acres of “natural” area where I could wander along trails to the ocean. As a group of about two dozen small children showed up just before I did, I beelined for the furthest edge of the gardens as soon as I got in. I didn’t see them again for the rest of my time at the garden.

Before leaving town, I stopped by Cowlick’s Hand Made Ice Cream in Fort Bragg city center. Of course, as soon as I entered the doors, there were those twenty five kids all eating ice cream and taking up every seat in the place. By the time I received my ice cream, though, half of them had left. I am doing a good job keeping up with my one-per-day ice cream goal. I’m just one ice cream behind.

The road to Eureka consisted of a 20 mile portion of 1 that was a winding road from the coast to 101 at Leggett more inland. It took about an hour to get through and felt like the most remote part of the trip so far. It’s amazing how big the trees are.

After driving the several hours to Eureka, I stopped at Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate, as recommended by a co-worker. I spent more money there than I care to share here. Definitely stop here if you have the chance. Nothing else in Eureka looked interesting, so I kept going.

Finally making it to Klamath just after 6, I checked into my hotel room in this very unusual place. The hotel room itself looks pretty normal, but it is eerily quiet here. Only about 700 people live in Klamath, and this area only has two restaurants and one gas station. I should be ready to leave pretty early tomorrow because there is nothing to do otherwise.

There are two hikes that I am aiming to do in Redwood National Park…actually, in the interest of not backtracking too much in the car, the hikes are in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. I drove by the trailhead earlier today. It’s basically just off the side of the road where there’s enough room for a few cars to park. I don’t expect that it will be too crowded.

By 2pm, I plan to be on the road north to Grants Pass, Oregon, where I will be meeting my uncle’s brother for dinner.

I spent much of today on the road, back on the 1 northbound. I departed Oakland shortly after 8 and immediately ran into massive traffic getting over the bridge into Marin County. Construction of some sort added about 30 minutes to what should have been just a few. After stopping by Starbucks for breakfast and REI for trekking poles, I made it to Reyes Point just before noon. It was pretty chilly, having dropped just below 60ºF with strong winds.

The Abbotts Lagoon Trail hike was more of a walk, with roughly three miles taking roughly an hour and a half. I didn’t see many animals or flowers, but I did see lots of sand dunes and reasonably large waves on the ocean side. At the start of the trail, I spotted a snake just before it spotted me. It scampered off quickly. I saw several small birds that weren’t afraid of people. There was a heron (I think) that was very non-photogenic. I didn’t see any Snowy Plovers despite much of the area being fenced off for their nesting.

For lunch, I stopped by Side Street Kitchen in the town of Point Reyes Station for a delightful meal. Usually I don’t like vegetarian sandwiches as a concept—sandwiches generally are a vessel for eating meat protein—but this one was an exception. The Mt. Tam Baguette had a brie cheese from the creamery next door, honey crisp apples, fancy mustard, arugula, and melted leeks. It was very good.

After departing from Point Reyes Station, I was out of civilization for a long while. I had no cell service and passed by maybe five towns with populations ranges from 50 to 500. Basically, I just saw five gas stations, five grocery markets, and five restaurants from Point Reyes to Fort Bragg. I did stop by Bodega Bay for a quick ice cream, which was the worst ice cream of my trip, but it was still decent.

After about four hours of driving windy coastal roads, I made it to Fort Bragg, where there were Starbucks, multiple gas stations, multiple restaurants, shopping centers, all the signs of a decent sized town. It’s just after 8pm now and I’m in a hotel room eating a grocery store salad. It feels good not to eat at a restaurant for once.

Tomorrow I’m planning to head north to Redwood National Park. I was so excited to hike some of the trails there until I saw the weather forecast: 100% chance of rain. So instead I may spend much of the day in Eureka, visiting a craft chocolate shop that a co-worker described as the “best chocolate ever”. Thankfully, I don’t need to be out of the Redwood National Park area until Friday afternoon, so I should be able to get in a hike Friday morning before passing into Oregon.

I expected that today would be a good day and it was. After sleeping a good 8 hours, Will and I departed to Firebrand Artisan Breads for pastries and Royal Coffee for coffee. My banana walnut muffin and passionfruit Kouign Amann were delicious and the coffee place was unlike anything I had seen before. Behind the café were two rooms with large glass windows for walls. One room was the roasting facility and another was a training room with all kinds of coffee making equipment. For each of the coffee offerings on the menu, I could choose between about a dozen different beans. Because I don’t like making decisions, I just got exactly the same thing as Will did: a cortadito. Don’t ask me which bean and roast we got because I don’t remember.

Next up, we went on a moderate 8 mile, 1000 ft elevation hike in Redwood Regional Park in Oakland. The French Trail and Stream Trail Loop took us along a stream and ridge. There were lots of ups and downs and we saw several dogs along the way. It ended up being a good 4 hour exercise and adventure in nature. For most the trail, large redwoods shaded the path.

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When we were done with the hike, we decided that it was time for tacos. After hiking, getting tacos is always a good idea. We went to Cholita Linda in Temescal and ate so much food. We then decided that so much food was not enough to we went across the street to Curbside Creamery for ice cream.

The day ended back at Will’s house, where we had some time to unwind and I did another load of laundry. I decided to break up my trip a bit further so that I don’t have to do any 9 hour drives in one day. Tomorrow, after stopping by REI to pick up some trekking poles, I’ll head north to Point Reyes for an easy hike and to Mendocino to check out the glass beach. I end the day in Fort Bragg, where I am staying for the night.

During my trip, I’ve been asked a variety of questions from people I know and people I don’t know. Here are some of highlights:

• Why the west coast? Over the past few years I started doing more travel in the US, and I’ve discovered how much this country I have yet to explore. The US has a lot to offer for travelers. Several years ago, my uncle, who is from California, expressed confusion as to why so many people are traveling to Europe and Asia instead of the US west coast. I can now empathize with him. I also have some friends out in Seattle whom I’ve promised to visit for the past five years but have as of yet failed to do so.
• Are you planning to move to California and scouting it out? No.
• What dating apps do you use? Uhhh
• “I’m driving the Pacific Coast Highway north.” How far are you going? “To Seattle.” Wow that’s really far.
• Are you Canadian? You sound Canadian. I’ve never been told this before but it happened twice in 24 hours.

I’m now back in Oakland, in a familiar place, the room I spent the first few nights of my trip nearly four weeks ago. I return from the south, this time with a car, for two nights before I continue my journey northward. It feels nice to be in a familiar environment, as I begin a new part of my travels.

I’m excited to spend the next day hanging out with my friend in the East Bay. It will be a good time to slow down and catch up, since when I saw him at the start of the trip it was a bit of a whirlwind with lots of people.

Now I am going to spend the rest of the evening reading and doing laundry, since I am almost out of clothes. Today was good. Tomorrow will also be good.

I spent my afternoon in two parks. First, I stopped by Apple Park in Cupertino, home of the Ring Building, otherwise known as the mothership. In the visitor center, there is a large scale model of the campus, made out of solid machined aluminum with an anodize finish. Employees handed out iPads with an AR app, showing what’s in each building, how it looks at any time of day, and how the cooling and electrical systems work. It was pretty neat. I got a cappuccino at Caffe Macs and wandered around for a bit. There’s not too much to see if you’re not an employee, but the campus is beautiful, full of trees, flowers, and other things green.

In a fanboy fashion, I shelled out $25 for an Apple Park tote bag. The bag came in a box that made it look like any Apple product 10x – 100x the price. The employee taking my payment asked me if I wanted a bag for $0.10. I explained, no…I’m buying a bag already, but he failed to understand the irony.

Next, I departed for Rancho San Antonio Preserve, just west of Cupertino in Los Altos. As is growing more common, there are signs for mountain lions, though these signs provided more information about what to do if confronted. I didn’t see any mountain lions, but I did see lots of wildlife.

On my roughly one mile hike up and around, I encountered birds of prey, beetles, and a hare. There were many squirrels, with plenty to eat and no fear of humans. I sent a picture to one of my nature-loving friends who identified it as a California roundboi. I also saw about two dozen turkeys, some of which were in a group running together on the path. Again I realized the limitation of my iPhone 6 camera in taking wildlife photos, but I managed a few okay shots since these birds and squirrels were so unafraid of me.

I’m not sure if the preserve always looks this way, but it was vividly green with lots of flowers. Some areas were wide open grasses with picnic tables and large paths for runners. Other areas were surrounded by trees, with narrow, less-traveled paths. I could have gone for a longer hike, but I instead decided to sit and read for a while.

Soon, I depart for dinner with a college friend whom I haven’t seen since graduation. Then I’m off to Oakland.

I continue to get excellent daily Aayla updates. She is doing quite well and enjoying the sights and smells of spring. Here are some of my favorites.

This morning I slept in again until about 9. My appetite, which disappeared about a day ago after being uncharacteristically voracious, has still not returned, so I nibbled on some leftover skillet vegetables and an orange. I’ll have some nuts and a granola bar later before lunch to keep up my energy.

Occasionally I get tired and lose my appetite like this, but it’s not happened in months now. Over the years I have seen some doctors about it but they can’t seem to find a source. Typically removing stress, eating well, and exercising solves the issue. The best case takes a couple days and the worst case has taken weeks or months. I found that trying to determine a root cause is a not helpful exercise and the best thing is just to understand that my body sometimes behaves this way and to work through it.

Having said all this, I would say I’ve been eating well and getting a decent amount of exercise. Though I have only been to two yoga classes in the almost four weeks that I’ve been on the west coast, I have done my fair share of skiing, walking, kayaking, biking, and hiking. I don’t have any typical stressors in my life right now. I am not working and I haven’t been too alarmed at seeing my bank account balance steadily drop.

Often, I’ve found stressors come from places that I’d least expect it and at times when I’d least expect it. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been packing a lot into my days and I haven’t really had too much time to sit back and reflect. I’ve maybe read two chapters in my book since I left San Diego. My last several posts have also morphed into pretty uninteresting descriptions of my day with little interesting commentary. It would not be surprising if there is something stressing me out right now that I haven’t spent the attention to discover.

Let’s take a look at the next few days. I am meeting with friends for lunch and dinner today. Tonight and tomorrow night, I am staying at a friend’s house, and we are spending the day together. On Wednesday morning, I depart north with no plans. I haven’t booked any hotels or even looked up what to do. By Sunday I’d like to be in Portland, where I will be staying for three nights in a Yurt that might not have electricity or running water. I’ve been on the move for coming up on four weeks now, staying in one place for no more than three days.

There is something about not having a place to be settled that I find a bit discomforting. I sometimes wonder whether renting a camper van would have been a better choice for this trip. I could park it basically wherever and I would have had a constant place to retire to whenever I wanted. Right now, I really only feel grounded at night and in the early morning, so my day is always a blur. Renting a camper van probably would be about the same cost as what I am doing now. On the other hand, I am meeting new people and discovering new places the way I am traveling, and I much prefer driving a smaller car. So I think I overall prefer things the way that they are now.

Knowing that I have control over the next few days can be comforting. I know that it is about 8 hours to get from Oakland to Eureka on the coast. I found a cheap and comfortable hotel in Eureka that I can book today. I know that it is about 4 hours to get from Eureka to Grant’s Pass, where my uncle’s brother lives. I need to call him up, but I can do that later today. From there it looks like there are several towns before Portland on the coast, but I don’t want to book any hotels yet as that would impose too strict a schedule.

I also know that writing things down like this is a good way to diffuse stress, whether I know its source or not. Normally I would just write this all down in some note on my phone. As I am writing this travel log, I figured that it is useful to publish it. It seems that many people think that this kind of travel is non-stop glamorous, but I know from close friends who have done it that it is usually not. And that’s fine.

When starting this trip, I wanted to know what it feels like to not have to do anything, and I have realized that I don’t really know how to do that. With empty time, I just fill it with something, usually too many things. I think I just want to relax, but usually I don’t. I get stir crazy easily. And I get overwhelmed if I do too much. So I need to re-strike the right balance. I have the opportunity to do just that over the next few days.

Once I get to Portland, I will be spending a few days with my old roommate, who has been living a semi-nomadic life for the past four and a half years. He and his girlfriend have some fun things planned, including hiking Mount Hood. It’s 30 miles and 6000 ft in elevation gain over two days, which is a bit more than double what I can typically do. It sounds like a lot of fun, though I might suggest that we find a mountain that is half as big.

OK, I need to get going for lunch soon. Here is a picture of some dinosaurs I saw this morning: