Sunday, September 11th., 2022…… A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY for me! 73 today. Sure don’t feel it
though. Cathye had to go to the campground store to pick up some eggs and
bacon. We missed that the other day while at Walmart. We also forgot to pick up
a new coffee pot. The glass carafe slipped off the counter the other morning
and we spent some time cleaning the floor!
Then we loaded the pups in and took off for the coast. It was only a
short drive to Watsonville and from there we went up the coast to Santa Cruz.
We did manage to hit all of the Sunday traffic as folks were heading over to
the Boardwalk amusement park and the beach for the day. But it was no problem.
We also hit some of the places where Cathye lived. The actual houses are no
longer there but she showed me the area and I think she went back in time to
revisit her days with her 7 brothers and sisters (she is the oldest) and the
times they had growing up there! We got back to the rig and rested for a bit
and fed the dogs then headed off to San Juan Bautista to go to Dona Esther for a
nice Mexican dinner and margaritas. Thanks to all who called, texted, or
messaged me during the day. It was a very nice way to celebrate and very nice
day too and I enjoyed it all!
Monday, September 12th., 2022…… We travel again today. Headed 143
miles to Santa Rosa and the Sonoma County Fairgrounds RV Park. We were not
looking forward to this park. I didn’t do much of a review before booking way
back in July! My bad! I did take a look
a few days a go and the park reviews were terrible! Gravel, close together and run down! So we expected that and called ahead to the
next park and asked if our site was available a day early. We had prepaid for
the Fairgrounds but we are willing to give up one night if need be. But when we
got to the park and saw our site was not crowded and was level and clean, we
decided to keep to our plan. Good thing because we got a call from the next
park that our site was not available. We
got set up and got the dish going and then relaxed for a bit. FYI – the dish is
actually a little in the next site because of the trees in the way – so we’ll
have to see if they put anyone in there today or tomorrow. Hope not!
We decided to go find a winery in the area. Cathye has never been wine tasting so it was a good time for that today! I found Harvest Moon, locally owned and operated and all bottling here is from their property. Online said they wanted you to make tasting reservations but walk-ins were ok given the day and crowds. Well, when we got there, we found we were the only ones there on a Monday afternoon! It was perfect! The guy was super nice and when we told him this was her first tasting experience, he was extra helpful.
We tasted a flight of several wines and ended up buying a few bottles. Cathye liked it so much that we are planning on heading over to Napa to V Sattui (my favorite winery!) tomorrow for the day. They have a picnic area and I texted them and they said they were dog friendly, so we can take the pups. On the way home, we stopped at Panda Express and took food home to eat. Monday night football. My Broncos against her Seahawks! The Seahawks held off Wilson’s late drive and won the game.
Tuesday, September 13th., 2022…… No hurry today. I made a coffee run while she made breakfast. We found the laundry and got some clothes together to wash a few loads. While she waited and watched that, I headed off to get dog food and a coffee maker at Walmart. I also need to scout out a fuel stop for tomorrow. Not much room at the local stations that sell diesel so I’ll have to work on that. After we got the clothes folded and put away, we loaded the dogs in the car and drove the 35 miles up and over the foothills into the Napa Valley. We came in through Calistoga and worked our way down to St. Helena where Sattui is located. They have a wonderful outdoor shaded picnic area and, as I said, the dogs were welcomed there. She went in the tasting room and store and looked around and then sent me back in to get wine and cheese and meats and bread and grapes for our charcuterie board. It was really tasty. We didn’t drink the full bottle. I only had one of the little 4 oz plastic picnic cups. I was good to go!
We got back home and I headed off to go to Petco and also to get gas in the Honda. I spotted a Smart & Final store and stopped in and got some of my Ramona’s potato and beef burritos. Yaay! My favorite! I also wanted to scope out a truck stop close by for diesel and see how to get in and out tomorrow. Turns out it is only a few miles south of us (which isn’t too bad) and has an easy on-ramp to head north on the 101 so it should work. Then it was back home for the evening. There have been several folks around us leaving and a few more coming in. But so far no one is parked near us so we have the satellite dish still in place. One more night to go! Cathye fixed us stuffed salmon for dinner and we drank the rest of our bottle of wine and settled in to watch tv (America’s Got Talent) until bedtime. But what happened next was not expected! A 4.4 earthquake hit us! The epicenter was only 2 miles from Santa Rosa. Not sure where that would be from us but we sure felt it. An aftershock of 4.3 immediately followed.
I
have been in several earthquakes in my life but never have I been this close to
the epicenter! It was a jolt to say the
least! No damage reported anywhere that
we heard so we were happy to hear that. Poor Cathye hasn’t been through one
since she left California over 50 years ago so she was a little shaken up (no
pun intended)! Then, when we got to the
8:00pm AGT show, we discovered that the satellite dish had moved enough to not
receive a signal, so I had to go out and realign it. We missed the first act
and half of the next but we saw highlights later. Out of the eleven finalists,
we think we have the top three figured out. But – it is a lot tougher this
season, given the talent level. We’ll see tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 14th., 2022…… The drive to Ft. Bragg is only
117 miles today, so we were in no hurry. We pulled out and hooked up the Honda
and left around 10:00am. As I hoped, we made it to the diesel station with no
problem and were headed out by 10:40am. The route today took us off of hwy 101
and west on hwy 20 to the park. It is probably the windiest road I have been on
in several years! But we took it slow and made it ok. We are now at Fort Bragg
Leisure Time RV Park. This is the other (of 2) 30-amp-only parks, so we will
need to take it easy on the power. But since we are on the coast, and the heat
wave has already broken, we won’t need both airs. We’ll see how it goes. We got
set up and walked the dogs and checked out the campground. I always try to stay
at parks I know (and like) but the Santa Rosa, Ft. Bragg and Klamath locations
were unknowns. This park is older and a bit tighter than we’d like, but we’re
in and good to go for today and tomorrow. We left in the car and drove the two
miles to hwy 1 and found Glass Beach. We had read about the glass that came
from several years of dumping in the ocean in the 50s. It is illegal to remove
any but we managed to find and keep a few pieces.
We came back and rested for a while, then Cathye heated up leftovers. We
walked the girls and then settled in to watch tv. The 2-hr AGT finale wasn’t on until 9:00pm so
we only planned on watching it until 10:00pm, which we did. We also went online
and bought tickets for tomorrow for the Skunk Train.
Thursday, September 15th., 2022…… Can you believe that today was
the first time on this trip that we went out for breakfast! We chose The Home
Style Café but found it has shut down. We then went up the coast a few blocks
to Egghead’s and put our name in. It was pretty good. After that, we needed to
get back to walk the dogs before coming back to town to board the train.
Established in 1885, the train travels along Pudding Creek, back into the
California redwoods. It was pretty much like any old train ride, which we’ve done
many times in many places, but we thought, ‘What the heck! Let’s do it!’ It was
a nice ride and we rode both inside one of the cars and also stood outside on
the open air platform car.
Once we got back, we headed back home to take the girls out for a walk. We watched the second half of the AGT finale. We thought we had the top three. Even though we had two of them, I was disappointed that Drake Milligan didn’t win. But he has already made his name and talent known and will be a C&W star immediately! Congrats to the Mayyas. Disappointed that Sara James didn’t finish higher. But again, she will be moving ahead in her career pretty quickly.
Friday, September 16th.,
2022…… We had 197
miles to drive today, all of it windy and slow! But we made it with only one
problem. On the many, many 180° turns going on Hwy 1 back to Hwy 1 (about 30-35
miles), we had a cabinet come open. Problem was it was the one with the DirecTV
receiver box, which came down on her head! She was dazed for a bit but conscious
and alert. I pulled over as soon as it was safe and checked her pupils. Good results
and we continued on, with her going back to take a couple of Tylenol for the
headache. We got to our park about 2:30pm and got set up. This is a 30 and 50
amp park. The 50 amp sites are back-in only and face the forest. I chose the 30 amp site because we got this
view!
Once we got set up and the dish going, we rested for a bit and decided that after our trek today, we wanted to go out to dinner! We fed the dogs and then headed off for the 5-minute drive into town and explore it - only a couple of buildings so it didn’t take long! - and found the local bar and grill! For a little local joint, they had some pretty good food! We shared a delicious patty melt and fries and had a couple of draft beers.
Once we got back, we took a nice walk on the Klamath River. One of the campers said he saw a black bear last night and his ice chest had been worked on. So, we were a little cautious after that! We watched tv until bedtime and found we both went right to sleep after our arduous drive!
Oops, almost forgot! We heard from our contractor early this morning that they would be on the job today! Penny went over and got these pics. I'm guessing this will be all we'll see before we get home.
Saturday, September 17th., 2022…… We slept in a bit and then
showered and fed and walked the girls. We made plans last night for today. We
wanted to drive the 19 miles north to Crescent City and have breakfast and then
go to the grocery store. We would also look for entries to the Redwoods Forest
on the drive. Nothing north of us. We found a local place called The Harvest
House for breakfast. Good enough but they were understaffed and those there
were not very organized so we had to wait a bit. We found the local market and
then headed back south to the campground. We unloaded the groceries and then
loaded the dogs and headed south to the Redwoods area. We checked at the
visitor center and found that none of the trails allowed dogs, so we left. But
we stopped at one turnout trailhead that had no posted signs. Hey, better to
beg forgiveness, than ask permission! The girls got a chance to walk in the
woods and enjoyed the smells and water. We saw a corkscrew tree, which I have
never seen before. They actually had several where the trunks of more than one
tree spiraled around each other over the years. Cool! May be hard to see in the
pics, but we tried…
Once we got back in the car, we headed back to our turn to the campground, but this time we continued on to the end of the road to see this coastal viewpoint. It was awesome!
We got back home and fed the dogs
and ate some leftovers and watched Wild Hogs, which she had never seen before.
One of my favorite Tim Allen movies! We leave tomorrow but the drive will be
only 75 miles, so we stayed up and caught up on other taped shows.
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