Bay Area

Saturday (4/26)

It started raining at Grass Valley the night before we were to leave.  By morning, it was still raining and Mike was soaked by the time he got the rig ready to roll.  We missed our turn and headed west (right direction) and then missed three consecutive places where we could have turned around.  By this time, we just said, “Okay, we will go a different way.”  And we did.  It continued to mist, sprinkle, or pour all the way into the Bay area.  True to its reputation, the Bay area was overcast, chilly (50 degrees) and rainy. 

We had a difficult time finding the park in Santa Rosa.  Easy to find the fairgrounds but you can’t see the park, it’s not in Garmin, and there are NO SIGNS.  But we did eventually get here.  And Mike got soaked again setting up the rig.  And then it stopped raining. 

This park is on the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.  Appropriately enough, they have "slipcovers" for the trash cans.  See below.

We plan to take a couple of “down” days and not leave the park.  Next week the weather looks pretty good so we will venture out then.

Monday

The weather is absolutely spectacular…bright sunshine, warm, with light breezes. 

I usually try to avoid the big city areas as it’s difficult to maneuver through them.  (We got stuck in a huge traffic jam in the middle of Denver, six lanes each way.)  However, if I am really set on something, I find a park that allows us to do whatever I want in a short drive.  (We spent several days in Long Beach CA at a park…can’t get much more Big City than that.  I wanted to see my cousins.)  So we are Santa Rosa, north of the Bay area.

When I was a child, my family took a trip to California; on that trip, we were in San Francisco.  I remember my amazement as a 10 year old at the Golden Gate Bridge.  We spent yesterday morning in the Golden Gate Bridge Park and I am still amazed. 

There is an old Army post Fort Point which sits directly under the south approach to the bridge, abandoned now, but still there.  The Army built the breakwater in the 1860’s to protect the fort and it was re-built when the bridge was constructed.  The bridge is 4200 feet long and withstood the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1988.  It was begun in 1933 and finished in 1937, all of it done without computers, computer simulation, calculators, GPS, any of the tools available to today’s engineers.

Fort Point

Mike with Alcatraz in the background

One other item on San Francisco:  My grandfather Dick Shrum was a master stonemason and bricklayer.  After the 1907 earthquake, he came to the city from Indiana and helped to re-build it.  There are probably buildings which are standing today which he helped build or repair.  (I have often wondered why a handsome young man whose skills were in demand would leave SF to return to either Kansas or Indiana.  He and my grandmother were married in 1910 and I don’t think he knew her when he lived in SF.  I know they met in Coffeyville.)

Dick Shrum ca. 1908

We wanted to see some of the countryside so we took a trip to a place called Bodega Bay.  My niece Dana is familiar with it and said there isn't much there.  And, as usual, she’s right. 

It’s mostly a marina or several marinas for commercial and recreational fishing boats but the bay itself is beautiful.  For a Kansas flatlander whose idea of the ocean is just a really, really big farm pond, I take every opportunity to get to the shore.  And there is a little eating place called Spud Point Crab Company that supposedly has killer clam chowder.  Since one of my very favorite places is Spud’s in Seattle, how could I not want to try this?  They only make their famous crab cakes on Saturday-Sunday so we had clam chowder and shared a tri-tip sandwich.  The clam chowder was great, the sandwich not so much.  Mike’s barbecue is far superior.

Wednesday drove the Mendocino County coastline on the old coast road, Highway 1.  We went north first on Hwy 101, then NW on Hwy 128 to just south of Albion.  As a bonus, our route took us through the Navarro Redwoods.  The road through the park was built to minimize the number of trees which had to be removed, so it’s very narrow with NO shoulder.  And it’s very dark.  Sunlight doesn’t make it to the road, as the trees are so tall and close.  And there were big logging trucks coming at us.  Some of them had only five or six gigantic logs. 

It’s only about 90 miles from Albion to Bodega Bay but it took us a good three hours.  Mike laughed at the speed limit signs…55 MPH.  In your dreams.  Lots of 15 MPH curves, up and down hills, over and around and lots of cliffs.  The road follows the contours of the land.  It is spectacular scenery and well worth the effort.  (I had considered going north next week on Highway 1….glad I changed our route to Hwy 101.  Towing a 35 foot trailer on Hwy 1 wouldn't be a good idea.)  We stopped at a state park for a picnic lunch.  Mike at that point needed a break from the driving.

We also stopped to see the Point Arena Lighthouse.  The view from the coast here is spectacular. 

Coming up next:  a visit to a winery.  (How could we be in the Napa/Sonoma area and not visit a winery?)  I started looking for a winery to visit.  There are only 300+ in Sonoma County and still more in Napa County.  The high-end places which look like a 17th century French chateau were definitely out.  And so were the mega-wineries like Kendall-Jackson and Sebastiani.  I stumbled across the perfect place Larson Family Winery. Their corporate motto: "We drink all we can and sell the rest." Our kind of place.  And they welcome dogs.

The road to the winery is just a rutted country dirt/gravel lane.  It was another perfect day, warm and sunny with a light breeze  The winery is owned by the Larson family, descendants of the Millerick family who owned a ranch here.  I would guess they decided raising grapes and making wine was both easier and more profitable than raising cattle so they converted the pastures to vineyards.

No wine for Muppet

Tasting Room

I had packed a picnic lunch for us which we enjoyed on their outdoor shaded patio, with a glass of their organic Chardonnay.  Then on to the serious tasting.  Their Chardonnay is a medal-winning one and it was excellent.  The Pinot Noir was good but not great.  But their Three Lab Cab...lovely.

The following signs are on the lane back out to the highway:

We will now pack up and move to the home of the immortal Seabiscuit on Monday.  Stay tuned.