Grants Pass, OR to Eureka, CA

Sunday December 16th

The big question today is whether or not we should try to get to CA as we had planned.  We heard from Catie, she is still in Yreka at her Grandma's and it's still snowing there.  I called the 511 number for the OR DOT road report; Siskyou summit was reported as snow covered with icy spots and snowing hard.  Siskyou summit is at 4100 feet, and according to Wikipedia, the highest pass on I-5.  As near as I could tell the forecast for Monday is the same with snow levels becoming lower as the storm moves across the area.  Then I checked the road conditions for US-199 between Grants Pass and Crescent City, CA.  The pass there is only 1600 feet so it was reported to be wet but clear.  That road is pretty curvy and mostly two lane but it looked like the best option for today.  We decided that if we didn't go today we might be here for several more days.  (Cathey would vote for anything that would take her to a drier, warmer place!)

I got my empty LP tank filled and then packed up, hooked up and hit the road.  We had to back track N on I-5 in order to get on US-199 at Grants Pass; we stopped & got some McDonalds food to see us through the next several hours because there is not much between Grants Pass and Crescent City.  The trip wasn't bad at all, except for having to do a lot of pulling off to let faster traffic get by.  Once we got to Crescent City we noticed the wind was much more evident than it had been coming through the woods.  Fortunately US-101 doesn't stay right next to the ocean for long, it is constantly curving and climbing the hills along the coast so even though the highway parallels the ocean another 80 miles down to Eureka we weren't exposed to the winds for very long.

We made it as far as Eureka today and decided to motel it for the night so that I wouldn't have to do a setup in the rain and wind.  Then we had a hard time finding a motel with enough space to get the trailer and truck parked.  Flat space is at a premium in a town like Crescent City where the mountains come right down to the ocean, so nobody makes their parking lots any larger than they have to.  We finally picked a 1970's motel on the south side of town.  It was still a tight place to get turned around but with persistence I got it turned around and pointed in the right direction for leaving in the morning.