Postcards from Garberville
Jul. 26th, 2025 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerNorth Coast Roadtrip travelog #2
Garberville · Fri, 25 Jul 2025, 10pm
In my previous blog I wrote about our Friday Night Halfway trip to the tiny town of Garberville. I pushed out thats blog as quickly as possible this evening after arriving in Garberville and settling in to the hotel because I wasn't sure how much time I'd have for more. Well, there's a whole lot of nothing to do in this town on a Friday night, so here comes part 2. I'm calling this Postcards From Garberville.
The drive up US 101 this evening was pleasant once we got out of the San Francisco area. Once past the 8- to 10-lane stretches of superhighway— and the loss of lanes in the Novato Narrows as my friend Dave says it's called— 101 is a really pretty road. The photo above comes from somewhere above wine country in Mendocino County. Yeah, the road is narrowing there, too. It's one of the few places in far northern California where 101 isn't a 4-lane highway.
Of course that spot, climbing through the golden hills, isn't the narrowest....
In a few spots in Humboldt County US-101 narrows considerably as it winds through groves of redwood trees. Yes, there are redwood parks up here, including Redwood National Park, but you don't even have to go into a park to see these magnificent trees. They're right on the road. You have to slow down and steer not to hit them.
We pulled off Highway 101 into Garberville just before sunset Friday evening. You can actually see most of the town in this photo if you squint. 😅 That's our motel with the "MOTEL" sign just down the hill.
In a town this small you don't expect your motel to be the Waldorf Astoria... or even the Hampton Inn. We stayed at a no-name motel that was strictly basic accommodations. A bed, a roof, a shower... and, since it's not 2005 anymore, a mini fridge, a microwave, and wifi. This room ran us about $100. That's kind of the ante nowadays for basic accommodations. We could've stayed at the Best Western Plus down the street, with a pool and a hot tub, for $200+.
Speaking of the mini fridge, I'd packed some drinks and breakfast food from home in a cooler bag to store in the room. I brought a bottle of beer to enjoy this evening... but just one bottle. One was all I had cold in my mega fridge at home, and I didn't feel like going down to the cellar to pull up more. 😅 No problem, I figured; I could check one of the stores nearby in town and buy more beer.
At a gas station convenience store down the hill I was all set to buy a six-pack from a north coast microbrew I rarely see carried in stores around home. Then I noticed something I've never seen before, in any store. Red Tail Ale.
Once upon a time Red Tail Ale was my favorite beer, hands down. I discovered it when I moved to Calfiornia back in the 1990s. Then around 2010 or so the brewery, Mendocino Brewing Company, was acquired by a Japanese conglomerate that started fiddling with the recipe and ruined it. The company folded up in 2018.
No, these aren't 7 year old cans of beer from before the company dissolved. They're also not 15 year old cans from before the foreign buyer fucked it up. They're a new beer, made by a new local brewery, that found the original recipe for Red Tail Ale and got access to the name and beautiful artwork. You know I had to give it a try!
Back at our motel room, there wasn't much of a place for me to enjoy my beer. Just two chairs around a small table under the TV. So I did like I noticed several of our neighbors doing.... I dragged a chair out to the breezeway and set up on a railing overlooking the parking lot. It seemed like such a trailer park thing when I first saw it— and yes, there's a trailer park across the street, complete with crying kids walking around in diapers and yapping dogs—but then I figured, "When in Rome...."
And yes, the Red Tail Ale is good. It reminds me of the beer I fell in love with twenty-some years ago. Is it just as good as the original? I'm not sure. It's hard to compare to something from that long ago. But now I know to start looking for this in stores near home.
Garberville · Fri, 25 Jul 2025, 10pm
In my previous blog I wrote about our Friday Night Halfway trip to the tiny town of Garberville. I pushed out thats blog as quickly as possible this evening after arriving in Garberville and settling in to the hotel because I wasn't sure how much time I'd have for more. Well, there's a whole lot of nothing to do in this town on a Friday night, so here comes part 2. I'm calling this Postcards From Garberville.
The drive up US 101 this evening was pleasant once we got out of the San Francisco area. Once past the 8- to 10-lane stretches of superhighway— and the loss of lanes in the Novato Narrows as my friend Dave says it's called— 101 is a really pretty road. The photo above comes from somewhere above wine country in Mendocino County. Yeah, the road is narrowing there, too. It's one of the few places in far northern California where 101 isn't a 4-lane highway.
Of course that spot, climbing through the golden hills, isn't the narrowest....
In a few spots in Humboldt County US-101 narrows considerably as it winds through groves of redwood trees. Yes, there are redwood parks up here, including Redwood National Park, but you don't even have to go into a park to see these magnificent trees. They're right on the road. You have to slow down and steer not to hit them.
We pulled off Highway 101 into Garberville just before sunset Friday evening. You can actually see most of the town in this photo if you squint. 😅 That's our motel with the "MOTEL" sign just down the hill.
In a town this small you don't expect your motel to be the Waldorf Astoria... or even the Hampton Inn. We stayed at a no-name motel that was strictly basic accommodations. A bed, a roof, a shower... and, since it's not 2005 anymore, a mini fridge, a microwave, and wifi. This room ran us about $100. That's kind of the ante nowadays for basic accommodations. We could've stayed at the Best Western Plus down the street, with a pool and a hot tub, for $200+.
Speaking of the mini fridge, I'd packed some drinks and breakfast food from home in a cooler bag to store in the room. I brought a bottle of beer to enjoy this evening... but just one bottle. One was all I had cold in my mega fridge at home, and I didn't feel like going down to the cellar to pull up more. 😅 No problem, I figured; I could check one of the stores nearby in town and buy more beer.
At a gas station convenience store down the hill I was all set to buy a six-pack from a north coast microbrew I rarely see carried in stores around home. Then I noticed something I've never seen before, in any store. Red Tail Ale.
Once upon a time Red Tail Ale was my favorite beer, hands down. I discovered it when I moved to Calfiornia back in the 1990s. Then around 2010 or so the brewery, Mendocino Brewing Company, was acquired by a Japanese conglomerate that started fiddling with the recipe and ruined it. The company folded up in 2018.
No, these aren't 7 year old cans of beer from before the company dissolved. They're also not 15 year old cans from before the foreign buyer fucked it up. They're a new beer, made by a new local brewery, that found the original recipe for Red Tail Ale and got access to the name and beautiful artwork. You know I had to give it a try!
Back at our motel room, there wasn't much of a place for me to enjoy my beer. Just two chairs around a small table under the TV. So I did like I noticed several of our neighbors doing.... I dragged a chair out to the breezeway and set up on a railing overlooking the parking lot. It seemed like such a trailer park thing when I first saw it— and yes, there's a trailer park across the street, complete with crying kids walking around in diapers and yapping dogs—but then I figured, "When in Rome...."
And yes, the Red Tail Ale is good. It reminds me of the beer I fell in love with twenty-some years ago. Is it just as good as the original? I'm not sure. It's hard to compare to something from that long ago. But now I know to start looking for this in stores near home.
