Road Trip, Part One: Northern California

Drove down to California a few weeks ago.

I went down I-5 as far as Grants Pass, and then cut over to Crescent City on the coast, where I spent the night, after driving up to say hello to Smith River. Had to say hello, because my father’s family used to have a place there.

My grandparents, Percy and Lyllian Litchfield, owned a fishing camp at the mouth of the Smith River, a few miles north of Crescent City, in the 1930s. It consisted of a few small wooden cabins built on the bluff over the lagoon at the mouth of the Smith River. Down below was the dock where fishermen set out to to catch the wily trout.

Nowadays there is a motel, a restaurant, a permanent trailer park, and accommodations for traveling RVers there. You’ll know the place if you drive by on Highway 101 because the whole property is now the Ship Ashore, so named because there is a red and white ship sitting by the highway. Back in the 1950s the ship sat out at the top of the bluff, and the fishing cabins were still there.

I don’t know how it came about that the Litchfields became attached to Smith River. I’ve heard that my grandmother Lyllian was the one who loved the place dearly, and Percy loved Lyllian dearly, and that’s why they bought the fishing camp. Lyllian died in 1938 at the age of 51 from Pick disease, a form of dementia, and Percy sold the camp and stayed in Watsonville from then on.

But during the 1930s they went to Smith River often. My mother worked in a garage in town, and she told me that they’d get done with work on Friday afternoon, get in their cars, and drive all night from Watsonville to Smith River, spend Saturday and Sunday there, then drive back Sunday night and go to work in Watsonville Monday morning. My cousins and I have asked each other how in the everlovin’ blue-eyed world they did it. These people were driving 1930s cars at 1930s speeds on what was then the twisting two-lane version of Highway 101, a distance of about 500 miles. Our parents told us it took them about ten hours, one way. I’ve got to figure they took turns driving while the others slept.

When I was a child and the family drove up that way, my mother was always pointing out the window and saying, "There’s the old road," and I’d look, and sure enough, there was the cracked and overgrown pavement of a winding two-lane road. You can still see it in places, the road and one or two of the bridges that were built back in the day with their quaint concrete railings and lovely arches. That road drove around hills and ravines and threaded through the giant redwoods. The part that threaded through those giant trees is still there, preserved as The Avenue of the Giants. You have to get off the freeway to see the redwoods now.

About twelve miles south of Crescent City is the tourist mecca known as the Trees of Mystery. We always stopped there on the way home when the boys were little. It was great – you took a walk through the woods, which was perfect for two little boys who’d been sitting in a car for days, and you came out through the gift shop, where we’d get a toy or two for each child. Cheap thrills. Broke up the trip, and if the kids got to talk with the giant Paul Bunyan statue in the parking lot, so much the better. This trip I stopped long enough to take a picture of Paul and Babe the blue ox with my cell phone, and text it to our sons. A little reminder of another time, before the children they were grew up and got into rap and metal and employment.

Yeah, driving 101 through northern California brings up lots of memories, some of which are mine.

Next time: A cemetery tour. More fun than it sounds like.