Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/06/03/down-along-the-coast-part-i/
California 1 is an engineering marvel, a highway that hugs the breathtaking California coast for hundreds of miles. It doesn’t go from the northern to the southern border, but it covers enough of the coast to satisfy you for a long time. US 101 will get you into California from the north, but while it stays close to the coast and the ocean comes out of hiding at several points, this highway stays east of the Pacific.
From the border with Oregon and for about seventy miles south, to the small fishing town of Trinidad (where we had fresh fish and chips at the Seascape restaurant, tucked into a cove with views of fishing boats and large rocks in the sea), 101 puts you in redwoods country. In 1850 there were about 2,000,000 acres of redwood forests in southern Oregon and northern California. In an oft-told tale, gold was discovered, this time in the Trinity River. Greedy whites came calling. The native peoples—who had managed to live in the area for thousands of years in harmony with the great trees, using them in daily life but not cutting them down en masse—were killed or booted out and left to fend for themselves; what gold there was in the rivers was taken; the miners then took up lumbering to feed the wood demand of the cities and towns; and before long, 90 percent of the redwoods were gone, forever.
michael yates
ps the more we travel, the more lost we feel. there is something so profoundly wrong with the country. you can see it in the omnipresent environmental degradation and feel it in the anxiety of the people.