We stayed in Northern California a bit longer than expected, but the mountain air is so refreshing compared to suburbia southern California.
So, after our cozy holiday in Klamath, we debated which route we were going to take out of the state. Eastbound and Down or backtrack through the 101?
East promised more danger than the 101 so we decided to backtrack through Eureka and head east before we hit San Francisco so we wouldn’t have to retrace too many steps.
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| On the road again.... |
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| ...we just can't wait to get on the road again.... |
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| A wet drive through the Redwoods |
BUT… before we continued on our way, we had to stop by the Steven’s (Dave and Courtney) to say our final goodbyes before heading east... but for real this time! ;)
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| The Stevens brothers and the King boys |
Since it was the day after Christmas, the whole Steven’s gang was there. Let’s just say we ended up staying a LOT longer than we planned on staying because by the time we left, the sun had already gone down!
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| A cool army surplus store in Downtown Eureka |
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| Jeff finishing up some work on the Myrtle plates |
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| The whole Stevens gang seeing us off |
We set up camp in Garberville which is just an hour south of Eureka. Garberville is where all the touristy attractions are. It’s actually one of the area’s people claim is the home of Bigfoot!!
The campsite we landed on was Richardson Grove RV Park. If you ever get a change to stay here, it’s actually pretty nice. You ARE behind a gas station, which sort of takes away from your mountain views, but in the morning when you look out your window you can see the fog as it rolls through the giant redwoods.
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| Gas station view... |
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| The fog is pretty cool though |
However, the campground is clean and quaint unless you have a huge rig like us, then they tell you to park in the pull throughs (which is basically a glorified parking lot). Nevertheless, you are still surrounded by majestic redwoods, so it still counts as “wilderness".
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| Trees that surrounded the campground |
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| Our setup |
I wish we could have stayed just one more day to fully appreciate this spot, but our main destination was east and we had to stick on the course. California is such a wonderful place to explore. There is so much to see! We could have spent a good solid couple of months in California and still not see everything.
Across the street from us was a tourist attraction called the One Log House. Apparently, when a huge Redwood fell to the ground, some people hollowed out the largest part of the trunk and made it into a little house/room. I can believe it because some of these Redwoods are ENORMOUS!
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| Tourist attractions across the street |
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| The "famous" One-Log House |
Well rested and ready to go, we left Garberville and headed south. Our goal for that day was somewhere outside of Oakland which was about 5 hours away from us.
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| Cedar being a cutie |
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| Coooome on Paaaapaa!!! |
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| Road view of the Redwoods |
We stopped for gas in this little town called Laytonville which one of those drive-though towns on the 101.
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| Laytonville Sign |
Surprisingly across the street, there was a health food store. What I've come to notice is that almost all Californians, north and south, strive to obtain the most organic and healthy produce around. For some reason, I felt when we left southern California, it would be hard to find the kinds of produce and food we were used to at home. This was actually quite the opposite and it seems that Northern Californians love their good food too. This made me one happy camper. :)
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| Awesome.Health.Food.Store. |
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| Yummy food |
Since pumping gas for the coach is at least a half hour ordeal, I decided to run over and see what the fuss was all about.
This store was AWESOME!! It was like a mini Whole Foods. There was even a bulk section! I purchased a couple of items and headed back to the coach. On the way back, I was distracted by the building neighboring the Good Food Store.
This building was distracting me because of all the window paint that adorned the sides. As I got closer, it became apparent that this building was a tanning salon, hair salon, beauty parlor, gym, clothing boutique, piercing salon and SMOKE SHOP(?). I thought that was pretty funny. I guess when you live in a town that isn’t that big, you got to pull all your resources together.
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| The Multi-Tasker |
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| An up close view of the sign below "WAXING" |
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| yea..yea... it's a Gym too! |
After we filled up, we were once again on our way south. Keep in mind we were planning on doing at least a 5 hour drive and would camp wherever we stopped.
We decided to check out a relatively new skate park in Ukiah, which is about three hours north San Francisco. The skate park was pretty full when we got there.
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| Cool fog rolling through the mountains... |
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| Brand new skate park! |
Cedar was asleep in his room so Jeff went and rolled around on his own while I tidied up and did some things round the coach. I was just minding my own business when this guy came up and wrecked my peaceful mood.
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| I REALLLLLY wish I got a face picture of this guy, but I was so flustered that I only managed to get him walking away. |
I enjoy people and truly try to stay out of trouble, but trouble was looking for me that day. As I was typing away on my laptop, I noticed an elderly bearded man looking at me in.....disgust(?) Utterly confused, I opened the passenger side window to see what this guy’s prerogative was. I was absolutely astounded when Old Father Time began to lecture me about how selfish and stupid I was for taking up as many parking spaces as the coach did. I responded by informing him that there were plenty of parking spaces so I didn’t think there was a problem. He proceeded with this (still) hilarious quote,” You gotta THINK (points to his puny brain) before you ACT (points at me), this is the guide to world peace”. After this worldly speech, the man turned on his heels, quite proud of himself for reprimanding some “hoodlums” and joined his wife and their dog (which was off-leash in a strictly leashed area.. but who’s keeping track right?). Needless to say, at the time, I can’t say this guy’s “good deed of the day” pleased me all that much. I, in retailiation, responded to “Dudley Dolittle” with this little note:
To the Park Enforcer a.k.a. I-Drive-A-Prius-So-I-Think-I’m-Better-Than-You Guy:
(BTW no offense to those who drive the Prius)
Before you decide to brighten someone else’s day, why don’t you follow your own rules and THINK before YOU act. I don’t appreciate the fact that you can have your dog off leash when there’s a sign in front of your car that CLEARLY says ALL DOGS MUST BE ON A LEASH. After all, there are an awful lot of children around. SO maybe you can follow your town’s rules, and maybe YOU can practice world peace.
XOXOXO
I won’t lie. It felt good to fight back. And really it wasn't the leash rule that bothered me because Gia is almost a no-leash dog. When it came down to it, here I am minding my own business and here comes the Bitter Guy to ruin my good mood. Unfortunately, we didn’t stick around to see his reaction. ;)
Santa Rosa had a skate park that we couldn’t pass up, so that was next on the list. Santa Rosa is a cute little town just a couple of hours north of San Francisco (so that would make it an hour south of Ukiah).
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| Santa Rosa Skate Park |
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| Cedar and Jeff hanging with the locals |
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| Tagged Skatepark... |
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| Cedar is SUCH a skate fiend!! |
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| WHOOOAA... |
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| Maaaanual...... |
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| Fam Photo at Santa Rosa |
OKAY… so after another hour spent hanging with the kids at Sebastapol, we finally were back on track. BUT it was dark yet again.
So we looked for some campsites nearby. We chose the KOA in Petaluma. I don’t know what KOA stands for but apparently it’s a popular RV campground that has locations nationwide. It was a great campsite, but it was also a $65.00-a-night campsite. That’s the most we have paid so far on the trip! I mean we could have gotten a decent hotel room for that price. But it was dark and far too late to look for another campground, so we bit the bullet and set up camp.
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| Peacock just hanging on someone's roof |
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| A view of our campsite area |
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| Some cool bird... |
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| You could even rent cute little cabins at KOA |
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| "Wild" peacocks EVERYWHERE! |
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| A late Christmas present from the KOA gift shop ;) |
I WILL compliment the downtown area of Petaluma. It was absolutely adorable!
We found this great Himalayan (reminiscent of Indian food) restaurant right in the downtown that was not only affordable, but DELICIOUS!
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| (Sorry the picture is so dark) |
Our meal started off with a complimentary lentil soup (soooo goood… Cedar ate like 4 bowls). We moved on to Veggie Samosas and Pakoras. For our entrée we shared a Navrattan curry. That was the best Indian food I’ve had in a long time.
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| MMMMM... Samosas and their awesome split pea soup |
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| My favorite!! Papadam crackers behind the curry and rice |
So, all in all, it took us
two days to do a four hour drive.... Maybe we will have more luck getting out of California the next couple of days. :)
