West Coast Road Trip

Day 1: Thanksgiving on the road

We’re headed to San Francisco for Eric’s work, but a quick flight felt like a wasted opportunity. Instead, we turned it into a multi-day road trip down the coast — because why fly when you can drive through some of the most beautiful scenery in the Pacific Northwest?

The weather, however, had other plans. We encountered rain of almost biblical proportions — so much that parts of Route 101 were closed earlier in the day because of high water. We were lucky to get through, and very glad we hadn’t taken the motorcycle, as we’d originally considered. That would have gone from “adventurous” to “regrettable” very quickly.

It’s Thanksgiving, and our holiday dinner was at a dive restaurant by the beach — not exactly a traditional spread, but sitting together watching the storm roll over the Pacific, we felt genuinely thankful for each other and the freedom to do things like this. There’s nothing else we ask for.

Day 2: Haystacks in the ocean

After yesterday’s deluge, the weather gods decided to cooperate. The Oregon coast in good light is something else — this stretch of Route 101 is an endless parade of winding roads hugging dramatic cliffs, scenic overlooks that demand you pull over every few miles, and wide sandy beaches framed by dark, moody headlands. The real showstoppers are the rock formations — “haystacks” and “needles” — jutting up out of the ocean just offshore, sculpted by millennia of waves into shapes that look like they belong in a fantasy landscape. We stopped so many times to photograph them that our average speed for the day was probably closer to walking pace than driving pace. Worth it.

• Accommodation: Pacific Reef Hotel

Day 3: 2,000-year-old trees

Today we hiked among the enormous redwood trees of northern California, and if you’ve seen Star Wars Episode VI, you already know what this place looks like — because the forest moon of Endor was filmed right here. We may or may not have hummed the speeder bike chase music while walking through the ferns, and we may or may not have received strange looks from other visitors.

It’s not hard to see why they picked this spot for the movie. Coast redwoods are the tallest living trees on Earth, reaching 379 feet (115.5 m), and some are thought to be 2,000 years old. Two thousand. These trees were already ancient when the Roman Empire was still a going concern. Walking among them is genuinely humbling — you feel very small, in the best possible way. We also encountered herds of wild elk, which turned out to be much closer than expected and much larger than we’d imagined.

The forest is well protected now as a National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it wasn’t always. By the time protections were put in place in 1968, uncontrolled logging had reduced the original old-growth forest to just 10%. That number is sobering, and it makes you grateful that someone finally said “enough.”

• Redwood National Park
• Accommodation: The Redwood Riverwalk Hotel

Day 4: Geological bowling balls

We started the morning with one more dose of redwoods, driving along the Avenue of the Giants — a winding road that passes through groves of ancient trees so tall they seem like skyscrapers.

Then we hit California’s legendary Route 1, which clings to the coast in a series of tight curves, dramatic cliffs, and views that make you want to pull over every five minutes. (We did.) The highlight was Bowling Ball Beach, where we arrived just in time for sunset. The beach is named for the eerily round boulders scattered across the sand, exposed at low tide — geological concretions that have been weathering out of the surrounding rock for millennia. They look like a giant abandoned a game of bocce on the beach and never came back for the balls. In the golden evening light, with the waves crashing around them, they were mesmerizing to photograph.

• Avenue of the Giants
• Accommodation: Airbnb in Point Reyes

Day 5: Across the Golden Gate

We spent the morning at Point Reyes National Seashore, which feels like the edge of the world — windswept headlands, crashing surf, historic dairy ranches dotting the rolling green hills, and a rugged coastline that looks more like Scotland than California. It’s wild and beautiful and almost completely empty, which made it the perfect way to decompress after days of driving.

In the afternoon, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco — always a thrill, no matter how many times you’ve done it — where the trip shifted gears. Eric headed off to work (the original excuse for this whole journey, remember), while Bea got to spend time with friends Jani and Warren. Best of all, they treated her to a proper Thanksgiving dinner — the real thing, with all the trimmings — which made up for our dive-bar Thanksgiving on Day 1. Some debts take a few days to settle.

• Point Reyes National Seashore
• Accommodation: InterContinental Hotel

Day 6: Wandering the city

While Eric was at work, Bea spent the day exploring San Francisco with Jani — wandering through neighborhoods, ducking into shops, and generally doing the kind of unhurried city walking that’s only possible when you have a local showing you the good spots. In the evening, Bea met up with another friend, Sylvia, for dinner at the legendary Zuni Café, a San Francisco institution known for its buzzy, convivial atmosphere. Eric and Sylvia’s husband David managed to escape their respective obligations in time for dessert, which is really the most important course anyway.

• Restaurant: Zuni Café

Day 7: Marshall’s Beach

After Eric’s last day of work, we made the most of the evening. We hiked down to Marshall’s Beach, a steep trail that drops you onto a secluded stretch of sand directly beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s one of those spots that photographers obsess over — the bridge looming above you, the Marin Headlands across the water, and the Pacific stretching out to the west. We timed our arrival for golden hour, and the sky did not disappoint. The sunset lit up the bridge and the surrounding clouds in deep oranges and reds, reflecting off the water in a way that made us feel like we’d been handed a gift. We shot until the light faded and the bridge turned into a silhouette against the darkening sky. Not a bad way to end a work trip.

• Marhshall’s Beach

Day 8: Escape from San Francisco

The drive out of San Francisco provided what we’ll generously call “quality time” — which is to say we sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for a truly impressive amount of time before finally breaking free. Once we did, though, the drive north was beautiful. We took the inland route this time rather than the coast, which gave us a completely different perspective on California: wide agricultural valleys, golden hills, and eventually the dramatic rise of the mountains as we headed toward Mount Shasta. The snow-capped peak appeared on the horizon long before we reached it, growing steadily more imposing with every mile. By the time we arrived at our accommodation near the base, the landscape had shifted from California sunshine to proper winter — a preview of what’s to come tomorrow.

• Accommodation: Airbnb in Mount Shasta (we don’t recommend where we stayed)

Day 9: Crater Lake

We passed Mount Shasta this morning, though the peak was hiding behind clouds — apparently it wasn’t ready for its close-up. The drive from there to Crater Lake wound through snowy mountain roads that got progressively more wintery as we climbed, until the landscape was fully blanketed in white.

Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States, formed when a massive volcanic eruption caused the mountain to collapse into itself thousands of years ago. The result is a nearly perfect caldera filled with the most impossibly blue water you’ve ever seen — at least, that’s what the photos promise. When we arrived, there was heavy snow on the ground and more falling, so we strapped on snowshoes and hiked along the rim through what can only be described as a winter wonderland. Visibility into the crater came and went — dramatic clouds would part briefly to reveal tantalizing glimpses of the lake below, then close back up again, as if Crater Lake was teasing us. We didn’t mind. Snowshoeing in near-silence through deep powder, with the knowledge that a volcanic crater lake is somewhere below you in the fog, has its own kind of magic.

• Crater Lake National Park
• Accommodation: Crater Lake Bed and Breakfast

Day 10: A god trapped in the underworld

We lucked out. After yesterday’s teasing glimpses, the weather cleared completely and we finally got to see Crater Lake in all its glory. The blue of this water is otherworldly — deep and vivid! No rivers flow into it and there are no local pollutants, so the water is fed entirely by rain and snowmelt, making it some of the cleanest on Earth. We spent the day snowshoeing along the rim in brilliant sunshine, stopping constantly to photograph a lake that somehow looked different — and equally stunning — from every angle.

The Klamath people, who have lived in this area for thousands of years, have their own origin story for the lake, and it’s far more compelling than the geological version. In their telling, Llao, god of the Below World, lived beneath Mount Mazama and fell in love with Loha, the beautiful daughter of Skell, god of the Above World. When she rejected him, Llao’s fury triggered a catastrophic battle between the two gods that destroyed the mountain. Skell eventually defeated Llao, imprisoning him back in the underworld and covering the ash and destruction with water. Peace was restored, and Crater Lake was born. It’s a story that captures the violence of the volcanic eruption and the serenity of what came after in a way that “caldera collapse approximately 7,700 years ago” simply doesn’t.

Hydrothermal activity is still present beneath the lake, so Mount Mazama may erupt again someday. Let’s hope Llao stays put.

Day 11: Reflections on a road trip well spent

The final stretch: Crater Lake to Seattle, which is a solid day of driving no matter how you slice it. We crossed back into Oregon, watched the landscape shift from snowy mountains to farmland to evergreen forests, and eventually rejoined the familiar roads of Washington state.

Long drives home are good for reflecting on the trip. We started this journey as a way to turn a work obligation into an adventure, and it delivered far more than we expected. Stormy Thanksgiving dinners, immense Redwoods, geological bowling balls, golden sunsets over the Golden Gate, a Klamath legend about a lovesick god — eleven days, three states, and more memories than we know what to do with. We’re already thinking about what the next “work trip” might look like.