Petrolia and more of the Lost Coast

This weekend, we made a day trip to Petrolia, CA, a town named after California's first oil boom in the 1860s. Petrolia sits at the north end of the "Lost Coast," which includes Shelter Cove, a town we'd visited about a month ago. Petrolia is in an area as remote as you can get. The town is at the end of Mattole Road, a long and curvy road (with no phone service) leading from Ferndale to the coast which swings past many farms and cow pastures and which gets no phone service (which I realized when I tried to connect with Ellen, a co-worker, who lives in Petrolia). We had beautiful weather driving out, and it was a great experience!



(view through the windshield)


We hiked part of the Lost Coast Trail, along the beach, part of the way to the Punta Gorda Lighthouse (which was operational from 1911- 1951). Despite these sunny skies, rain started pelting down on us and we had to run back; we did not make it the 3 miles there, although I'd really like to sometime! Pepper did great off-leash, enjoying the sandy trail, but required a bath later that night as she was reaalllly dirty.



We stopped in Victorian Ferndale for the general store's famous hotdogs on the way back, and then visited the cute dairy town of Loleta, where we bought a few different cheeses at the cheese factory (for me, not K to enjoy!) and scones from their famous town bakery. MMM!

This is a shot from our walk the next day in Eureka's Sequoia Park (doesn't it look like a veritable redwood forest?) :)