Randall & Debbie’s California Vacation, Part V

Randall & Debbie’s California Vacation, Part V

Northern CA and back home

After the Avenue of the Giants, we hit the road again and headed north, through Eureka and into Arcata where we met Rachel and Bruce for a wonderful Japanese dinner.

Rachel and Bruce live in Trinidad, CA and after dinner they took us to their local beach.

Rachel and Bruce live in a small community that shares a lush 80 bed garden and greenhouse.

They also have two adorable cats...  Munchie and Shanti who calls Debbie her godmother (Debbie picked her out in the shelter all those years ago in Denver).

Rachel Randy and Debbie headed even further north the next day and saw Elk, and more big trees.

Did a nice walking tour of some ancients and then heard about a local whale siting.  

We jumped into the car and headed to see the whales.

After the whales we went to Paul Bunyan's place (Trees of Mystery) and rode the gondola up to some amazing views.  This was also as far north as we got.

We ate another delicious dinner out in Arcata, decided to take a group photo at another beach and were treated to a spectacular sunset and 10 cute puppies!

On our last day we said a sad farewell to Rachel and Bruce (and M and S) and headed south looking forward to one last night in the Bay area.

We were treated to a fog free view of the Golden Gate Bridge and then treated ourselves to yet another delicious meal at Gracias Madre.  Debbie tried the El Burro. Yum!!!!

Spent the night in Palo Alto (repacking everything from two weeks on the road), got to see the pristine Stanford University campus the next morning and flew out without incident back to NJ and finally home.