3 November ‘07
Saturday
Yesterday we drove Hwy 101 from Eureka to Ukiah. Not having a prior thought of what campground we would be staying at in Ukiah, we pulled off the highway about 20 miles north of Ukiah, in Willits. I noticed this RV Campground sign coming up on the left side of the road and told Lou that “this one looks good”. It did look good until I hit the first pot hole that just about turned the coach over, and then once inside the gate, we quickly noticed that we really didn’t want to camp there…it was terrible !!! We even had people coming out of their “campers” checking us out It was quite obvious that they were taking bets that we were trying to find the quickest way out, and they were right. The roads inside of the campground were sooo bad with pot holes that Louise had to go back in the coach and try to hold everything in place while I was trying to get back on the highway. I think we have learned a lesson…”look before you leap”. We continued our drive down to Ukiah and our quest for a campground. We saw a couple of signs and chose the one at the Ukiah Fairgrounds. After all, we had a pretty good campground at the fairgrounds in Eureka and this one looked even better. Fortunately it is good. This morning we awoke to a beautiful day and decided to make the most of it. We grabbed the map, a tour book, and headed out. Yesterday we didn’t have a look at Ukiah so this morning was it. It didn’t give us anything that said we must stop, so we continued on. At the end of town we found a road sign that told us that we could reach Hwy 1 and we decided that this would be a good ride for the day. The ride took us through the Coast Mountains with some of the curviest we have been on. Thank goodness we weren’t driving the coach. About 10am we pulled into Boonville. It is never surprising to find places like Boonville…very quaint and welcoming. It is located about half way through the redwood forest areas on our way to Hwy 1 and the Pacific Ocean. Well as you know, I am one that loves to stop at coffee houses and especially those that are tied to bakeries… Now we found a good one here in Boonville. Not only were the coffee and bakery goods “really good”, the service was outstanding…nice gals. They also recommended that we continue out the road to Mendocino…”it is one of those perfect little towns on the coast that you’ve got to visit”. We knew that we were in “wine country” but had no idea that we would come across Roederer Estate Winery. The Roederer Sparkling Wine is one of our favorites, and we were excited to find them. Of course they were offering a “tasting”…. Now that we had found the Roederer Estate Winery, we could have said that the “day is complete”, but no we’ve got to find Mendocino. Mendocino is one of those picture perfect California coast towns that you’ve just got to visit. We’re glad we did. Now we had one more town along the coast that we wanted to see today…Fort Bragg. We thought that we would find the remains of the original fort, but we found out that it had disappeared years ago. We did find something unusual in Fort Bragg…
a tour of old “rail or track cars” were arriving in town just as we were. I’m not sure that they are called “rail or track cars”, but it is those little cars that used to ride on the railroad tracks and check to make sure that the rails were still in good shape. Anyway, there were 25 little cars that rode the rail from Willits, over the mountains and into Fort Bragg. There are a number of “rail car” clubs in the country and they get together to travel the rails all over. They will be riding the rails in Alaska for 7 days this next spring…it sounds like a blast !!! I want one… I did meet this couple that had one for sale.
They want $4,000 for it and tell me it is in perfect condition…it looks just like the orange one above.