After driving out of the redwoods, we continued north to Crescent City. Coming in, evening fog roiled off to our left, along the coastline. We passed a wood art shop on the right that looked intriguing and we promised ourselves a visit after we found a place to crash.
What we found was the dubiously-named Bay View Inn. I say dubious because, while theoretically the bay was within sight, the mist was so thick you really couldn’t see it. I asked for a room with a view and we got one, but it wasn’t what we expected. Ah, well, it was a spacious room for a reasonable price.
What most occupied our minds was food, which we found within walking distance. A local place, with good basic grub, and pleasantly informative waitress who told us which the best route would be to get back to I-5.
“Don’t do 299. Not unless you like stop and go and lots of waiting. Take 199.”
Which would take us into Oregon. Ah, well. In the morning we walked around a bit, waiting for the gift shop next to the hotel to open.
Which had this bizarre feature. We could see it from the hall window in the hotel and speculated on what it might be. Finally, after buying some gifts for friends, I asked.
The original building had been a barge that offered a traveling water show. That tower gave light into the on board aquarium. When they established it permanently on land, they kept it as a landmark.
It made for an interesting image, at least.
After a pretty decent breakfast, we headed back out to the wood art shop. A lot of it was the standard fare you find in many places—birds, cute plackards, bears, a lot of it obviously mass-produced even though lovely in execution. But out front was a striking and motley collection of original pieces done by a local artist whose name we failed to get. (Duh. Val Polyanin.)
Several of the pieces were social commentary of some sort, a few with obviously cosmic import. The style was impressive and in some ways repulsive at the same time. You would need a large space in which to display some of them, as they would wholly dominate any modest space.
After that, we hit the road again, north. And once again we found ourselves driving through lushness.
A short way into Oregon, we stumbled on a treat. Stayed tuned, the adventure continues!
