She's on the Move!

Wednesday, June 20th

     Rhoda & I saddled up and moved out about 9, saying good-bye to my new grand-dog, Oscar 

(and Jeff & Katie), and headed for Santa Rosa, CA to visit one of my freshmen college roommates who, as Vonnie reminded me, I hadn't seen nor communicated with in (46 - shhhh) years!  Could it be.

Vonnie & Sue
(Hi Rosie - we missed you)

     We had a great time catching up with all those years and Vonnie fixed the most delicious salad and gave me a great CA goodie bag to be enjoyed during the rest of my trip.

     And speaking of catching up, yesterday (Tues.) I had lunch with high school friend, Tracy

 in Los Altos after viewing her new house by mid-century modern builder Eichler.  She has great plans for it's restoration and fun to have a dream come true.  She treated me to lunch at Rick's Cafe in Los Altos while we caught up.

    So, it was a fun "vaca" to relax and reconnect.

    Tough getting to Santa Rosa with so much CA traffic and it wasn't at all good for my new brakes and rotors as it was go, brake, stop, go, brake, stop - almost all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge 

with only a few spurts of getting up to speed.

     Along the way I noticed that the Gateway building complex was for lease while the E-bay/PayPal buildings across the road with showing no signs of a slow-down.

     After lunch with Vonnie, I took Rt. 166 west to connect with CA 1 to go up the coast.  I passed the Kobel champagne vineyard plus many others and loved seeing all the activity on the Russian River - lots of people playing in and around it as the river meandered along side of me or me along side it.  It met the Pacific Ocean in grand style - wide and welcoming and the Pacific welcomed it too with beautiful haystacks.

Russian River in foreground and Pacific Ocean and haystacks in background

     Turned north on CA 1 and quickly found myself way above the ocean and ascending higher and higher on narrow, curvy, cliff-hanging roads so I didn't dare look over the edge too often even though I was on the inside edge (which I'd recommend to anyone trying to decide which way to do this route).

     I had picked out a campsite from my book but with no signs along the road, I missed the turn and there was no way to turn around so I continued on for about another 1/2 hr. until I spotted other "RVs??" on the ocean side even though they were on top of a cliff so I pulled in to what turned out to be a very scraggly, mostly permanent campers, 

with very small parking spaces, no hook-ups and I knew I wouldn't be using the bathroom (didn't even want to check it out - thank you Rhoda) for $30 but it was location, location, location:

The front of Rhoda is about 6' from this fence
which is about 2 inches from a sheer cliff

Looking to the right from same position

Behind Rhoda
(actually looks pretty good in this picture but it was all
falling apart-uninhabited)

    I don't know how I'm going to get out in the morning as I had to drive  between this dilapidated building and a pretty shabby permanent RV (no one was home!) with about 2' clearance on both sides and then make a sharp right hand turn to park.  It looks like a driveway behind me but the bathroom is just out of the picture on the right and space between isn't as wide as Rhoda.  My biggest fear is that the only way out is the same way as in but backing up.  What do you think Sally??
    Stay tuned.

DATA:

Mileage:  110 (after San Francisco - I forgot to start at zero)         Gas:  $36 @ $3.76

Campsite:  $30                                                                                $13 @ $4.29 (hate those CA pumps)