Downtown Eureka hugs the harbor with quaint stores and attractive, friendly coffee houses. We ate breakfast at Bon Boniere... apple fritters so big they didn't fit into the waxed bags. Customers popped in and out of the open front door or meandered into an adjoining room to use WiFi at any one of the small rough-hewn tables. Sea gulls, pigeons and sparrows paraded past on the sidewalk and in the street, pecking crumbs from between the cobbles.

"It's early Sunday morning, and I am by your side. We'll jump into the wagon, and we'll all take a ride." The words repeated over and over in my mind as we bounced along the 100-mile loop of The Lost Coast.

"They say people take this road and are never seen again," joked Andy.

I held on to the door brace as Little Red jolted up and down, this way and that. Even though it is paved, the nerve-jangling, teeth-jarring road faced all four directions as it wound up and down from sea level or ten feet above the breaking surf to more than 2,500 feet in the air. All Around Humboldt County said, "See the Lost Coast. The 100-mile tour is an extraordinary drive. It is also known as the Tour of the Unknown Coast, one of the most grueling bicycle races in the country." Steep grades, hairpin turns, shoulderless sides, graveled washouts, pitted pavement and one-lane stretches challenge even the most astute driver. I can't imagine bicycling the route!

North of Petrolia, a town with one general store gas station that opened at 11 a.m., we saw cattle ranches. A few turns beyond town, a black calf stood on the road by the fence. Lucky for him we had good brakes. South of the village, sheered sheep grazed on the hillsides.

"This area has some of the worst weather in California," said Andy. Clouds moved in and out, but if what he read is true, we chose a very good day for a drive. In Honeydew, where we crossed a plank bridge over the Mattole River, we bought gas for $3.98.9 a gallon. The locals looked twice at Little Red, an oddity, I'm sure, in this country of heavy duty trucks.
"I've taken difficult roads in my time," said Andy, "but this ranks right up there with the number one most challenging." And lonely beauty... one house facing the water, maybe 20 feet above the surf, had only mountains for three miles on three sides.

Efforts to save Rockefeller Forest started in 1917, when the Pacific Lumber Company broke a promise to stop cutting redwoods on Dyerville Flats. The Humboldt County Women's League earned the attention and support of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. by 1919. Here, redwoods may not be the very tallest in the world, but because the undergrowth is more cleared, the grove is even more impressive. It's a beautiful walk on pine needles. Andy guessed this part had been prescribed burned eight or ten years ago. In Avenue of the Giants, more lush and green with ferns, water puddled on the road and along the shoulders.

Coastal redwoods have been called "eternal" and "immortal." Most live 500 years; some, more than 2,000 years. Even the scientific name, sempervirens, means "everlasting."

It's like John Steinbeck wrote. "The redwoods once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always... from them comes silence and awe. The most irreverent of men, in the presence of redwoods, goes under a spell of wonder and respect."

When we passed people on the trails, it was always in silence.

Then we headed for the Coast.