Nov 22

Saturday morning we headed out with the plan to head further south to warmer weather and hopefully drier. I’ll report right now that we did find both.

However………our route for the day was anything but straight and quick. California Hwy 1 – the coast road started just 7 miles south of our park so we decided to take it even though we were inland a bit. Well, after 1 ½ hours, 300 billion turns and switchbacks and 25 miles, we reached the coast. The road surface was good but roads were narrow as we wound up and down through many valleys of trees. The plan was to go down the coast through Ft. Bragg and then head east again to pickup 101 and go south again. We arrived in Ft. Bragg around 12:45 which was 46 miles from our last park after close to 3 hours of driving. Kathy had this shift, so at least she was happier with the wheel in her hand. Time was running short based on our destination for today, so we gassed up and headed east from Ft. Bragg. For those that don’t know it, this city is home to the US Military Airborne and Special Op’s and it is one of the largest installations in the world with 251 sq miles and 55, 000 military servicemen. They are good at hiding, as we didn’t see one hint of any, but at that point we just wanted to keep going. In all this, we did confirm that the California ocean is bluer than the Oregon ocean!

Thankfully the day was sunny and warmer and we finished the day winding through a 20 mile stretch of vineyards arriving in Napa Valley at a town called Calistoga around 4:30. I was actually able to even BBQ for dinner.

We’ll stay in Calistoga at the fairgrounds for 3 nights. It’s a nice spot and only 2 blocks from the bustling little main street in this town of around 5,000, so walking and biking around will be great.

I hear the weather is warming back home and melting all the snow. Enjoy the weekend!