California dreaming....

(Fri night)..  Ashland is a lovely little town. Really like the look and feel of the place. Maybe becuase it is actually a Shakespeare homage town?!  The hotel we stayed in was really good - the Stratford inn. Bit of faux Tudorage going on in the corridors but I was OK with that!

We had a nice little wander around town then, as it was raining again headed into Granite Tap House and was 3 floors up affording us a great view over town. Liked it in there and we also had the chef giving us lobster dish samples to see what we thought as he was playing with a new item for the menu :-)

From there we moved to Standing Stone Brewery where we were going to eat. I am getting rather fed up of the same old same old menus but this one was different. This one had VEGETABLES!!
We have looked at going to actual restaurants obviously but we never know when we are going to arrive somewhere so getting reservations isn't easy to sort.

Anyway, after a short wait we were seated and were soon munching on grilled oysters and this lovely warm veg salad for me. Yum...
We only had a couple more in there and then headed back as both were starting to flag and it was another fairly decent day of driving on Saturday to get us further South and into California.

Saturday. -  lovely hotel breakfast set us up for the day, very quick plan & book hotel session for Sun and Monday including a private winery tour...

So then we were packed up again and on our way. We needed to travel straight across to the coast and then down so we were going via Crescent City for lunch.

This was somewhere we had originally had booked to stay on Sat night until I realised that the way our plans were looking I would have a big push to get to SF with no decent chance at getting a wine tasting in around Napa or Sonoma.  So I changed plans and we are going straight to Eureka for tonight..

It was a lovely drive that took us through more forests, mountain areas and then there it was. The sign that said we were leaving Oregon.. Bye Oregon.. you have been wonderful and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you!  And then.. the ' Welcome to California' sign and we were there... Back in CA..

Arrived in Crescent city and straight to a place Dan had found for lunch which was great. Really good food - veggie friendly and lots of salads!  We then went for a walk along the beach and down the pier as I was getting a bit achy from days in the driving seat and needed to stretch my legs.  We'll stretch them I certainly did fighting against the incredibly strong winds that had whipped up whilst we'd been happily driving along.

 Jaysus.. it was crazy out there!  Even seagulls were struggling to fly and we saw one walking sidewards on the beach!!  Hahaha. Anyway, there wasn't actually that much to Crescent City so we were fairly pleased we had changed plans and cancelled staying here. Besides, we might not have been able to go on the private wine tour we had just booked if we had.
Finally made it back to the car and then on our way to Eureka....

I have been a bit nervous about this place in Eureka as since booking I have read some shit reviews about the area and the hotel so I am a bit edgy. I even looked at cancelling it yesterday and going somewhere else altogether but we'd get charged full price as it is too late now.. So its safe to say I was not rushing to get there!  And why rush anyway when you are driving either through the Redwoods or along a beautiful and dramatic coastline?!

We did make some stops on the way to get pics etc but the wind was getting worse. This didn't bode well for our night if it was going to get this bad or worse even... yeah I was extra looking forward to being in Eureka!!  Dan did his best to reassure me that it would be fine and I agreed that I was daft to look at so many reviews and wind myself up. I stopped doing that a long time back for this very reason as people complain or get super negative about the smallest of stuff and give places really bad reputations.

Anyway, we arrived and hmmm the area we are in doesn't look super pretty but its not on its arse and yeah, there are some homeless people around but that does not make it a bad area. Being homeless does not equal criminality.   I was annoyed that I had fell into believing the shit I had read.
The hotel we had booked.. sorry motel..is fine. It is really clean and has all we need. Its a really weird set up in how it is built but not arsed about that.

However.. on check in we were given some possible bad news.. There is a marathon tomorrow (Sunday 7th) along the Avenue of the Giants which is exactly where we had planned to go on way to our next stop. We won't be able to go to it again if we don';t see it Sunday so I was GUTTED. Absolutely gutted and poor Dan's heart sank as he just knew there was probably a night of sulking to come..........