Our general travel route for this week...
Sunday we awoke to a cool foggy morning but by late morning it had all burned off and it was a clear warm day. After coffee at the RV park we drove south on US 101 about 5 minutes south of Eureka to King Salmon Drive and Gill's By The Bay, another of our favorite small restaurants on the coast, for an early lunch of seafood chowder and grilled sole and halibut. Most excellent as usual! After lunch we drove back into Eureka where Kris was dropped off to wander about the historic old town area, specifically to Talisman Beads and two yarn shops (Yarn Fun and Northcoast Knittery) while Brian went off to check out Pierson Building Center (aka The Big Hammer). A decent afternoon for both of us. Dinner that night was some nice left over poached salmon from Saturday night along with some salad fixings. For entertainment we watched a couple more episodes of The Wire.
Monday we packed up and headed south to Cloverdale, California. We didn't get out of Arcata until nearly noon so it was an all afternoon of driving. We stopped for lunches of salmon burger and hamburger, without the bun, at the Ukiah Brewing Company in Ukiah then walked along the quaint main drag checking out a bookstore and a yarn store. In the yarn store Kris struck up a conversation with the owner and mentioned that we were from British Columbia. The owner said that she was from British Columbia. Kris asked her where she lived and the owner said she grew up in Trail whereupon Kris exclaimed that she grew up in Rossland (just 6 miles up the hill from Trail). Small world!
We spent 3 nights (Mon, Tues, Wed) at the Cloverdale KOA. This is a great location on the hill overlooking the Anderson River Valley and it is even better mid week when there are no hoards of kids here. For these 3 nights there couldn't have been many more than a handful of sites occupied. Pamela, the owner, told us that we were in the calm before the storm as she was expecting 60 families (close to 200 people) for the weekend and she was expecting chaos! This part of the state is in the midst of the worst drought in 100 years so they ask that everybody do their best to conserve water. So what do we see one morning? Buddy behind us is washing his RV and tow vehicle and generally spraying water all around. Went over to the office to tell Pam that she needed better signage! So she goes around and asks everyone to please not waste water. Less than a half hour later another guy starts washing his RV (yes she asked him too). He is pretty close to our site so Brian goes over and reminds him of the request to not waste water... well didn't that just get his knickers in a knot! Buddy.. "Do you work here?"; Brian... "No"; Buddy... "Well mind your own f*cking business!"; Brian..."Water conservation is everybody's business"; Buddy..."Well, their f*cking trees put leaves on my RV and the f*cking leaves are wrecking my roof!..." HUH... enough said... Other than those bozos it was a good 3 days. Weather was good and were able to enjoy the excellent pool once. While at the pool we met a couple with a huge 5th wheel and they told us how they were traveling down the highway when two tires on one side of the trailer blew out (he thought they must have hit something) and the impact almost tore off one of their slideouts. We went over and had a look and the slideout was pretty banged up. Some significant repairs required there.
Anyway, for the 3 days we did our usual in this area; a walk around the lovely town of Healdsburg, an excellent lunch at the Francis Ford Coppola Winery; a drive over to Calistoga and St Helena with a very good lunch at The Model Bakery; and evening drinks and munchies at the bar in Ruth McGowans Brew Pub in Cloverdale. Driving around we saw numerous vineyards beginning to harvest their grapes which all looked great...
Wednesday night actually brought on some most welcome rain (not much drought wise but it did wet a lot of earth in an area very worried about forest fires). Thursday morning we packed up and headed south all the way to Petaluma about 48 minutes away. This was the start of a San Francisco weekend and we elected to stay out at the Petaluma KOA and just drive into the city rather than pay the now exorbitant hotel rates. The unfortunate thing is that it was a "family weekend at the KOA" which means "chaos", much of it uncontrolled. The fortunate part is that we weren't there during the day!
Thursday afternoon, after checking into the KOA, we stopped at Aqus Cafe in Petaluma for lunch then drove south to San Rafael to Dharma Trading where Kris finally found the type of yarn she has been looking for.
Friday and Saturday were San Francisco days. A highlight for Kris was a tour at Britex Fabrics. For those of you who don't sew, Britex is the Holy Grail of fabric stores for luxury fabrics. 10,000 square feet on 3 floors filled with seriously wonderful fabric from all over the world. They also have a huge selection of buttons and trims, many of which are not available elsewhere. Hand loomed wool, hand made lace - the stuff that couturiers use. Many of their clients are designers who make the gowns for the Academy Awards and other red carpet events. In one display they have photos from The Game of Thrones and the samples of the fabrics and trims used to make some of the costumes. One of the employees at Britex was recently a competitor on Project Runway. Britex has a wonderful blog with resident bloggers - one of the bloggers lives in Courtenay and has an indie line of sewing patters for men's clothing. Kris also enjoyed a visit to Fabrix which is at the far end of the spectrum from Britex as you could get. They are a place where designers and manufacturers send their end stock for sale. Most everything is crazy inexpensive - but it is not really labelled as to fibre content, so you have to know a bit about fabric, but the prices are so good that you can take a chance on something that takes your fancy. I often see the fabrics that match garments I see in Nordstroms .
The drive into the city wasn't too bad as we went in a little after the real rush hour crunch on Friday but Friday afternoon coming back it took over twice as long as going in. Very slow going! Saturday was much better but still slow coming back as 101 narrows nearing Petaluma so there is much merging. Arriving back in Petaluma it was nearly dark so we stopped at Trader Joe's for a couple of pre-made salads then to the pub at McNear's for wine and munchies and to watch the Giants lose a close one to the Padres and back to the KOA for the salads and to watch an episode of The Wire before calling it a week.
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