Driving California on US 101

Morning in the mountains

Arcata US 101

Yesterday I woke up in Arcata, California and worked on Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation for an hour then I had to drive to Paso Robles to work the next day. This is a 9 hour drive down US 101 in California.

Through one of the few Redwood Forests

Largest and oldest trees in the world

Sometimes we forget how big California is. Highway 101 is the length of the state, from Oregon to Los Angeles. This highway goes through small towns and big cities, not around them. After Arcata I drove through the "big city" or Eureka, population 27,200.

Rocks next to the highway

Highway goes down to 2 lanes

After Eureka the highway goes through on of the few redwood forests in the world. Huge trees on both sides of the road. At some places the road narrows to only 2 lanes, 1 lane each direction. Hours of driving through huge trees and small towns. Then you get into the area where all the trees are gone.

Trees turn into pasture lands

Cows are cool

Further south you get out of the trees and there are a lot of cows and vineyards. There are still not many cities or towns in the area and then you get to Willits, which calls itself "the Gateway to the Redwoods" (coming from the other way).

sign over Highway 101

Driving into wine country

After Willits (3 hours of driving) I get to Ukiah and then start driving through miles of vineyards. This is winter so the vines are just woody stumps. Some people were working in the fields pruning the vines. It was raining all day so it wasn't as pretty as it could be, but is was a pretty and calm drive.

Many miles of vineyards

Marin county has many open spaces

Getting into the famous Marin County there were more cities and larger populations. The closer I get to the Golden Gate Bridge, which is US 101 there are more and more cities. The rain was finally gone and the drive was getting better. I decided not to go over the Golden Gate Bridge.

End of the open area

Driving over the Richmond Bridge

I got to San Francisco at 4pm and if I continued going down 101 I would have to drive through downtown San Francisco. Instead I went over the Richmond Bridge and went down I880 around Oakland and down the east side of the bay.

A California Mission

Long drive in central California

By the time I got through the San Francisco Bay Area it was dark and I had another 3 hours to drive. I decided to drive to King City and spend the night there. It was a long dark drive and I got there around 8pm.

US101 has bells from SF south every mile

Oil Fields

The next day there was no rain. It hadn't gotten down that far south, yet. I finished driving to Paso Robles and worked for an hour in the morning and then started my drive home. I love this drive because it is open and through fields.

Salinas River has another river under it

Train through the central coast

There is much diversity in this area. From oil wells and river valleys to lettuce fields and vineyards. The speed limit is 70 miles per hour, when I was in college I used to drive this same road and the speed limit was only 55 miles per hour. I remember getting a ticket for going 65.

Rain in the mountains

Beautiful clouds over the fields

Paso Robles then King City and Greenfield and then Salinas, if those town sound familiar they might be mentioned in books by John Steinbeck. He lived in the area and wrote many books based in this area. going up highway 101 you even drive past the Steinbeck Museum.

Gilroy grows garlic for the world

I loved the clouds

I finally got home around 5pm and it was nice. 1000 miles and 19 hours of driving in 3 days round trip from Sunnyvale, CA to Hoopa, CA then to Paso Robles, CA then back to Sunnyvale, CA. Glad to be home!!