Our last California stop, Redwood National and State Park, was a bit further away from Glass Beach than I like to drive in one day, so we picked a one night stopping point, Arcata, just north of Eureka.  We left earlier than our usual time, on the road by 9:30 hoping to get to Arcata in time for the reportedly wonderful Saturday farmers market.  Though we are used to adding 30% or more to the google maps driving time estimate, even that was insufficient to account for how long it would take us to drive the nearly forty mile stretch on CA SR 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, through the coastal mountains.  It was miles of very slow climbs, steep downhills, with cliff and mountainside hairpin turns for much of the way.  The Jake helped, but it was still pretty white knuckled driving, enough to make me miss flat Florida.

We had missed the office hours of our chosen RV park the night before, but they responded to our online reservation request as we approached their park.  Apparently it is graduation week for Humboldt State University, so we were quite lucky to get an opening at all when someone cancelled the morning we wanted to arrive.  After four hours of what would have been two and a half in a car, we pulled into Mad River, hooking up to their easily accessible pull through spot, full services including cable and WiFi.  We also took advantage of their resort style amenities, a very toasty in ground hot tub, and their affordable laundry machines.  All in all a great one night stop to refresh ourselves before boondocking in the Redwood National Park.