Klamath, CA or Bust!

Day 6 of our big roadtrip and the shine had started to wear off!  Darin was in the mood to “get there!” I made the case that HE was the one who wanted to do this roadtrip and interesting stops along the way are part of it!  I won and we turned off to take in the sights and history of Cape Blanco Lighthouse & historic Hughes House.

It was great to learn how the light operates and the job of operating it!  Three families ran the lighthouse and lived on the peninsula—IN THE SAME HOUSE!?  I guess the view would be soothing and offset the chaos of 16 children!?

The Hughes House was really interesting too.  Patrick Hughes was an Irish immigrant who tamed the timber to create pastures and a dairy herd.  He became rich shipping his diary products down the coast to San Francisco.  He and his wife built the house as a retirement home, complete with a cooking island in the kitchen, running hot water, and a bathroom attached to the first floor master bedroom.  Built in the late 1800’s it was way ahead of its time:-) 

The tours were nice, but we had an itch for some beach time.  We drove and analyzed and drove some more, landing on Whaleshead Beach, OR.  We walked, played, collected rocks, and found this great cave!

The town of Klamath (our stop for the night) looked sparse on the map, so we opted to have dinner in Crescent City.  The Chart Room was a charming, blue collar restaurant sitting right on the harbor.  We enjoyed watching seals, surfers and fisherman as we waited for our table.  And the food was well worth the wait!  Kenny turned into a clam chowder lover this trip—ordering a cup anytime it was on the menu.  (Seattle’s Pike’s Market won for best chowder).  

Paul Bunyon!  Just outside of Klamath, CA.  We screeched the car to a stop and kicked the boys out to run some obnoxious energy off around these statues.  It also amused us by being a stop the Griswold’s would have made (and our trip definitely felt like a sequel to the movie “Vacation”.

Turns out this extra dinner stop was the right call.  Klamath was a sleepy town on the Yurok Indian Reservation.  Our Holiday Inn Express was the lodging option for the town casino.  We swam, slept, and moved on!