Eureka!

The heat, even up near Shasta, was pretty bad the week we were in the area and it wasn’t looking to get any better anytime soon. We took off from our Shasta camp on Thursday evening, finding a place closer to the town of Mount Shasta to camp for the night. This allowed us to pop into town on Friday morning for me to visit a coffee shop for some heavy downloading while Kerri worked from the van in the shade of a nearby tree. A quick top-off on fuel after work and we were on our way to the coastal range of California one final time. We had only a few hours before the sunset, and with one of those burned in a Walmart in Redding. The plan to stay in the forest for the weekend anyway, since neither of us had been on this road (Hwy 299) before.

We spend the evening and after a night in an established campground, the following day headed West, towards the ocean, scouting dirt roads all along the route. While we did find a few mediocre (or worse) spots, none really beckoned us to stay either the night or weekend. We just kept on rolling, scouting, and more rolling until we finally put the national forest in the rear view. We knew we would be staying at a paid campground at that point, so it may as well be all the way at the coastline. Or so we thought…

In my brilliance (yes, I have some) I joined the Loyal Order of the Moose some years back, and there was a Lodge in Eureka that would allow us to overnight in their lot. We had no idea at the time just how amazing this Moose Lodge is – set a few miles outside of town in it’s own redwoods grove. RV parking, with hookups, on one side of the property, the lodge itself in the center, and a big grassy area on the other side. Add too it the coastal breeze and we were some happy peeps… and dogs. The dogs really enjoyed the well manicured grass. Choosing to simply lay down and sleep in the sun for the rest of the afternoon.

The following morning was Father’s Day, and the lodge was having a Swedish Pancake breakfast. We made sure to take advantage of something other than breakfast tacos, cleaned ourselves up and ate breakfast with the locals before loading back into the van to make the short drive to our next one-night destination, just a few miles North.