LeMons Rally Y'all! Road trip day the 4th

"gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee" (gogmorgo)
08/17/2016 at 12:01 • Filed to: None

Day four, starting out in Grants Pass was both the best and worst day we’ve had so far. I’m currently sitting in Fallon, NV, recuperating, so I figured I should get back on this.

We started off preventatively changing the fan belt on the Impala. The Jeep still needs the tail light harness fixed, but we wanted to get moving.

We still wanted to hit the coast for scenery and heat reasons, so we took 199 south-west to Crescent City, CA. This is a truly spectacular drive that everyone needs to do at some point.

Initially I was leading in the Jeep, and absolutely loving it. Turns out I was going a LOT faster than the Impala, and just as they radioed us to ask us to slow down, we caught up to a BMW going down the hill. The Comanche does corners way too well for a 4x4 truck with two solid axles and and 513,000 km. But we pulled over to let the Impala past and got some footage of it majestically navigating the twisties.

Unfortunately the ocean was pretty misty and invisible when we got down to Crescent City. But the drive up 101 was amazing as well. I love the Wet Coast.

Then, after a brief discussion, we decided it would be more scenic and much cooler if we took #1 south along the coast, so we veered off 101. This was ultimately a mistake. As great as the road was, it was too tight for the occupants of the Impala to have fun, and the steep drop-offs to a tree-pinball death were not helping.

After about an hour we decided the vehicles and passengers couldn’t take it. The Impala’s brakes weren’t doing well, and the Jeep’s were worse, even though I had it down in first gear. We pulled off to let them cool down and to discuss strategy. After a short pause, we flagged down some hippies in an ancient Merc 300D wagon, who informed us through the Catania stupour that the ocean was only, like, a half of, you know, a mile away dude. Dude no man, maybe like, three of the quarters, man. After thanking them and sending them on their way, we decided they didn’t actually know where the ocean was but that it must be close, so we pressed on. Again the ocean was too misty to really get a good view, so the drive into Fort Bragg wasn’t great, but we made it. We talked to a local and decided our best bet was to head back up to 101 to keep going towards San Fransisco. So we did that, and were treated to a spectacular sunset over the ocean from the top of the road.

Getting back on 101 was a great idea. We followed it across the Golden Gate, which seemed to go on forever through the mist. But you’ll have to wait for the GoPro footage for that. The rest of the drive to Monterey (our hotel was actually in Seaside) was uneventful but tricky-to-navigate-in-the-dark construction zones were pretty frequent. We got in around 2am, which is really starting to beat us down. We’ve actually driven far enough at this point to experience jet lag, and back home it was 5am.

Read about the rest of the trip:

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DISCUSSION (1)

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee
08/17/2016 at 12:21

I made the reverse of your trip a few weeks ago. SF -> Eureka -> Crescent City -> Grants Pass via the 101. It was my 5th time driving the Eureka -> Grants Pass portion. We stopped at Chandileier tree and drove through it (actually a fun time if you get the chance again).