I slept well and fairly late, and so by the time I'd had a proper breakfast, composed the last post and filled up on gas, it was getting close to eleven. It didn't bother me too much - I'd rather sleep on a couch in a house than behind the wheel of my car on the 101. But it meant that I was, again, a little pressed for time.

I followed the 569, winding through the hills to the coast. It was a smaller and less busy road than the I-5, and it was fun to drive around the twists and turns. I could have followed the I-5 straight down to San Francisco, but I'd opted instead to take US Route 101 down the Oregon and California coasts. Longer, but more scenic, and I had two full days.

I hit the coast at Florence and turned south. The freeway here was a little back from the coast, and there were rolling dunes between it and the ocean. I stopped at a couple of viewpoints, but the Pacific was hidden under fog - the same fog, I was guessing, that San Francisco is famous for. Dune buggies scooted up and down in the recreation areas.

I had visions of myself flying along near-empty roads around windswept headlands, but I soon ran into the reality of three hundred million people living in a country smaller than Canada. Even here, on a lesser freeway away from the large cities, the traffic was still heavy. The road was full of cars, caravans and mobile homes, which struggled up the hills in long, slow lines. At one stage I ran into a proper traffic jam in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, brought about by roadworks. Small labeled dots on the map that I'd taken for little villages turned out to be decent-sized towns with multiple traffic lights and urban traffic.

The 101 still had trusty mile markers, although they listed the miles increasing to the south rather than the north. I figured that mile 0 would be the Washington border, and Florence was at about mile 200. As Eugene was at mile 195 and Florence was on a similar latitude, I figured I'd hit California about mile 400.

I stopped at Gold Beach, about mile 300, for gas. There was a little man there to pump gas for me. Given that a different company's station in Eugene had someone to pump gas as well, I had to wonder whether self-serve gas is illegal in Oregon. Either that, or its gas station owners are very customer focused.

At this point I hit a dilemma - did I need to tip the little man? That, and my unfamiliarity with paying a server at a gas station (at the Eugene station I had paid inside) meant that I made a bit of a mess of the transaction. In the end I gave him two bucks - in retrospect, as my gas cost twenty it should probably have been four. I like to think of myself as being America-literate, but the whole tipping thing will take a bit of a work.

At this point, I was starting to doubt my decision to skip the direct, multi-lane I-5 in favour of the slow and winding 101. Suddenly, past Gold Beach, the road hit the coast again and the scenery opened up. Now I was flying around the headlands of my imagination - the dunes had given way completely to steep, rocky bluffs dropping down to breakers. The fog had lifted, and I couldn't help but stop at almost every lookout to admire the wildness of the coast. The traffic seemed to drop right off as well - for the first time I was really enjoying the drive. The miles seemed to fly by. I had been hoping to reach California by five, but it seemed that I was running behind schedule again.

I stopped at a rest stop at Humbug Mountain Park, and got my first glimpse of redwoods. Continuing on, I passed wide beaches covered in driftwood. They were darker, narrower beaches than the wide, white strands of my native Queensland, and the skies remained cloudy, but it was a beautiful scene nonetheless. The southern Oregon coastline is certainly worth the drive.

At mile 369, I suddenly came on an agricultural inspection point. I pulled up to the man.

"Hello sir, and welcome to California. Do you have any fresh fruit?"

I'd eaten the apple and banana I'd taken with me, so I was all clear. It was just past five, and a sign let me know I was entering Del Norte County. I was on schedule and making good time.

"Did you hear that, car? We're in California!" I exclaimed excitedly.

I suppose driving for days by yourself makes you do things like that.