TURAS AR DEIREADH

Slouching southward, we found ourselves in the not-so-scenic stretch of mid-northern I-5, and we’d had enough by the time we reached the small community of Williams, essentially due west of Yuba City.  Not a lot of RV options here, but the Almond Grove Park sounded bucolic.  Well . . . it was rustic.

 

. . . can you see the rig?  Look closely, it’s there amid the clutter.  As you can see by the sign, this really is a long-term residence park for mobile homes and trailers without wheels.  They only had four or five spaces for overnighters.  Spanish was the predominant lingua for most of the tenants, and we ended up being parked immediately adjacent to the opening to the laundry, which was the social focal point.  As this was my birthday (no gifts, please), we just settled in, put the antenna up, and Loni worked her magic.

 

The rig might be small, but it cooks just fine!  This morning, we had made a stop at Trader Joe’s in Redding and picked up all the fixins.  Yum.  A very nice birthday indeed.

The next morning we maneuvered our way out of the close quarters and headed west through the hills and farmland to Clear Lake, which neither of us had ever seen.  It’s actually a rather large body of water, lined completely around the edges with rustic and modern cottages, motels, and camps.  Reminded me of east coast lakes where the city dwellers flock in the summertime.  Alas, none of these took in RV’s, so our destination was the Konocti Vista Casino on the northwest shore, boasting the “only casino with lake frontage.”  Well, yeah, sort of.  It did have a little bay with boat docks, but is that a sheen I see on the water?

 

Yeah, real inviting.  Not quite sure what the swamp boat was doing in these parts, other than making a tremendous racket when the owner started it up and motored out.  It was the only craft in the whole harbor.  We wandered around the place a bit, and generally got a depressed feeling about it all.  The liveliest spot was a trailer in the parking lot they had converted into a smoke shop, which seemed to be doing a good drive-up business.  Guess taxes on tobacco are less on the res.  The casino itself was tiny, and totally depressing.  Smoky, only two gaming tables, with the rest all slots, and a collection of the saddest people we’ve seen in a long while.  Grim is the best description.  We did the 30 second tour and got out of there.  The adjacent RV park, however, was just fine.  Flat, good power, and even an effective wifi signal. 

They were on low season rates, so it only cost $20.  That building at the rear is the casino.  I suspect that in the summertime this place is much more lively.  We enjoyed the solitude.

The next morning we set sail for Santa Rosa, seemingly just down the road a ways.  That’s true, but we were still on the other side of a mountain range from Rte 101, so we went south on SRs 175 and 29 as far as Calistoga, then turned west on an unnumbered (at least on full-state maps) little gem of a road.  Hmmm.  Warning signs that no trucks allowed with over 30 ft from kingpin to axle.   Hmmm.  Buses not recommended.  Well, it’s a little gem if you’re on a scoot.  The GPS was having conniptions trying to portray the route.  It looked like a constipated python.

There were stretches that looked even more hilarious on the Garmin, but we didn’t get a camera on them in time.  Too much swerving and full lock turns.  Some heedless semi had ignored the warnings and had been pulled over by Smokie about halfway through the twisties.  I’m guessing he was causing havoc trying to negotiate the hairpins, and they’d have to run traffic breaks to escort him the rest of the way.

We didn’t clobber anything, and made it without incident to Santa Rosa, our last stop before our stay in the City with our kids.  We basically have been just marking time the last few days, as we weren’t supposed to arrive before Friday the 5th.  Santa Rosa is home to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, which has a big RV park and is on the Passport America scheme, so we paid all of $12 to stay there.  We hadn’t made reservations, so we were shocked to find the place virtually full.  They had only two spots left as there was a “reunion” of some travel club which had taken up over 60 spaces.  Almost all big Class A’s, so once again we were dwarfed among the behemoths.

  However, we did spot another Lazy Daze among them, and we had a nice talk with Carolyn and Shirley from Woodland, WA.  They had been with the club on a trip to the Maritime Provinces.  Later that day, another Lazy Daze pulled in, this time it was Mary Lou from SoCal.  We’re hoping she’ll become a first time guest at one of our SoCal Caravan Club outings.  I think that makes our total “sightings” of LD’s on this trip nine.

We hadn’t known it before, but Santa Rosa was the home town of Charles Schulz, the creator of “Peanuts.”  There’s a museum here dedicated to Schulz and his creations, and it was pretty neat.  We offloaded the scoot, made our way across town, and were greeted by the original “no respect” kid.

They allow photography only in the main lobby area, so there’s a lot of stuff I didn’t get to record.  In the lobby they had a crystalline Snoopy, and a wall mural that was made of individual 4-panel comic strips, where the night scenes (“Great Pumpkin,” etc.) form the dark areas.  Pretty cool when you alternate looking at it up close and from a distance.  By happenstance, we were there at closing when they began a charity reception which was attended by Schulz’ widow.  They didn’t throw us out, so we mingled for a while.  If you find yourself in Santa Rosa, this is a worthwhile stop.  Unless, of course, you just can’t stand “Peanuts.”

Despite being in a good-sized city, the only stations we could get over-the-air were a PBS and three Spanish-language ones.  No networks at all.  California is slowly evolving into a Quebec.

Friday at last.  Off down 101 and the awaiting E-ticket ride through San Francisco.  Our RV park is in South S.F., and the only way to get there is to go right through the City.  Hello, Golden Gate.  Damn, these lanes are narrow, and RV’s have to keep in the right lane, next to the concrete.

Actually, we planned our transit so we would go through right around noon, so the traffic would be at its lightest.  For the most part, it worked, but it’s always a thrill nonetheless.  Move over, bus!

We found the RV park with ease, mainly by ignoring our GPS and following the written instructions in the park guide.  Dora would have led us into big trouble had we listened.  We settled in, paid the highest rate ever for an RV park ($45, but still a bargain in this area), called our older son, John, to let him know where we were, and sat back to wait for him to pick us up after work.  This park, which until recently had only long-term tenants, was built in the 1950’s, and the bathrooms haven’t been updated one iota.  In a word, use your rig’s facilities!  To be fair, now that they are somewhat catering to overnighters, they are embarking on erecting all-new facilities over the next year.  It didn’t matter to us, as all we wanted was a secure place to park the rig.  We would be staying at John & Meghan’s place.  It’s the top floor of a 100+ year-old Victorian, at the crest of a hill with a dynamite view of the City.  Here’s a portion:

And here’s the full panorama:

This is looking east, with the Oakland hills in the distance on the other side of the Bay.  It’s just as pretty at night.

We had the perfect end to our two months on the road.  John, Meghan, Mike, and Alia treated us to a fabulous birthday dinner (thank you all!), this being one of those “milestone” jobs.  We went to a terrific post-impressionists exhibit at the DeYoung, and finished by groaning for mercy at Mike & Alia’s brunch on Sunday morning.  There is nothing better than family.

Sunday afternoon, we took off from the park just after 1:00, down to Gilroy, smell the garlic, then over the Pacheco Pass to I-5.  We didn’t want to compete with the Sunday traffic over the Grapevine and into L.A. at night, so, with rain starting to fall, we made it as far as one of our favorite campgrounds, the Buena Vista Aquatic Recreation Area.  It’s just to the west of I-5, due west of Bakersfield and just east of Taft.  We pulled in after dark (daylight savings had ended the night before), inexplicably were charged only $21 despite the posted rate of $38, and settled in to complete silence.  There were only four or five other rigs in the entire place, which is huge and sprawling.  Our final chore the next morning was to dump tanks, then take on just enough rip-off-priced gas ($3.45 for regular) to get us over the hump, and we cruised through light traffic (timing is everything) to home.  Well, our other home.  What a great trip!  Thanks for riding along.