We had scheduled today as a rest day and that’s about it. We did little other than make some preparations for travel tomorrow. We are dull sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes.
We are set up under an impressive oak tree. It offers superb shade but also drops 50 caliber bullet-sized and -shaped acorns on our roof, making a sound that keeps both of us alert. There are lots of very tubby quail in the campground. They are amusing to watch because they only exhibit three behaviors; bobbing their tasseled head while eating, running somewhere but never where their kin have run and, rarely, short flights. They have a firm strategy about survival – everybody hang together until the first guy chickens out and then all bets are off. Their feathered headgear is amazing.

It was time to continue the trek south down the west side of the U.S. so we put our stuff into travel mode and split from Cloverdale. We actually got out of the Russian River TT Campground before 10:30, which is extremely early for us. We are not early risers.
We got back on US-101 near Cloverdale and headed south. There was some rain a couple of days ago which gave the firefighters toiling to extinguish Crispy California’s hellish assortment of wildfires a break. Near Santa Rosa, we could see where they had held their ground when we passed through some burned and extinguished areas on both sides of the road. It was pretty evident where the firefighters had made stands – there are buildings, underbrush, bushes and trees where they were successful and flat, scorched ground covered with beige and gray ash and masonry chimneys where they weren’t. The city has reported 5700 destroyed structures.
We headed into increasingly heavy traffic as we approached San Rafael but we veered off onto US-580, over the Richmond Bridge and, alakazam!, we were on the other side of San Francisco Bay. We had figured that traffic was going to be light because today is Sunday. It would seem our reasoning, which was based on supposition, conjecture and speculation, was suspect because the traffic was atrocious. It was so heavy, in fact, that it was stopped. We thought we could zing down the east side of the Bay, missing the RV driving nightmare that is San Francisco. We merely found a nightmare elsewhere. Our clever plans were in tatters.
After a loss of only 2 years of my longevity and a half dozen scary panic stops to avoid driving hooligans, we emerged near San Jose where we got back on US-101 southbound. We must have been going the right direction because we noted the northbound traffic was stopped and backed up all the way to Hollister. Right about time the traffic got better, we bailed from US-101 onto CA-25. We skirted Hollister and meandered along, eventually passing through a small clump of buildings called Tres Pinos. Continuing, we soon passed through an even smaller clump of buildings called Paicines. Not too much further along we turned off on some farm roads ultimately pulling into the San Benito TT facility. We were here back in 2014 and were not dazzled with the place.
We pulled into the park and found some changes. The roads are better. The electrical system functions, which is much better than in 2014 when I needed to run our generators to supply power. The place looks much better. Both adult and family pools are open which wasn’t the case in ’14. There are big scrums of softball-sized quail charging in all directions. We actually got a spot with full hookups and shade. Last time we just had the shade. It seems better, now. The sewer system works but they have signs warning that RV enzyme compounds typically used in RVs can’t go into their system. It’s strange that biological organisms that eat poop are worse than poop but I’m no chemist.
We must have become substantially more wimpy as we age because it seems that a six hour drive we used to make in 2014 was much easier than the same drive now. It was a long day for us geezers so we set up our trailer and hopped inside for the rest of the day. One or more of us may have napped a bit.
We got a picture of a campground buddy. Click here

Today was our last full day in the Cloverdale area. Cloverdale is nice. At the north end of town the main drag is lined with sculptures, there are dozens of gorgeous old houses, the landscaping is pretty and the roads are okay. When there hasn’t been fire upwind, the air quality has been great. Their laundromat has great dryers. We had good food at the Hamburger Ranch. The weather has been nice. There are many handsome and colorful birds living near our trailer.
Our drive a few days ago from Healdburg to Stewarts Point had magnificent scenery but the road is challenging. I don’t recollect previously driving down a road with more twisting, turning, climbing, descending, and creeping around blind, sharp corners. We were lucky because we had two drivers and we each drove one way. Riding shotgun was better. It is beautiful country.
We fueled the truck, unhooked most of the utilities from the trailer and prepped for departure. Tomorrow we continue our trek southward. We hope to get through the San Francisco Bay Area without mind-numbing delays as we shoot for San Benito TT near Hollister.
See today’s Cloverdale shots. Click here
Due to a complete lack of talent on the part of the operator, today’s pictures may have some repeats from the 18th.

The rain beat out some nifty tattoos on our fiberglass home last night. We hope the rain that passed over made it to the firefighters a few miles away. They could use a break; this has been a nasty year for fire in Northern California.
We waited until it dried out this morning but we finally emerged from the Invader to watch the woodpeckers and titmice (titmouses?) at our feeder, take strolls and go to the local Ray’s grocery store to restock our shelves. I would suggest that anybody coming to the Cloverdale area bring their own food because grocery shopping here is pricey and Ray’s may be the worst.

It was laundry day today and, since our current campground only has one operating washer, we headed into Cloverdale to find better facilities. We drove into town on back roads and, strangely, ended up surfacing in town about 100 feet from our target destination. It would have been better to drive all the way down Cloverdale’s main drag because the beautifully landscaped road has a revolving display of sculptures about every 100 feet apart on both sides of the street.
The laundry was much less interesting than the sculptures but we finished it anyway and headed back home. Peggy said she felt a bit nasty so we climbed back into our trailer just before today’s rain started. I sure hope the rain gives the firefighters around here a break. They need one.

Today we got down to some bona fide fooling around. We decided to head to the coast west of Healdsburg on a road that goes out to Stewart’s Point on the Pacific. We got a late start due to procrastination and lack of effort.
We left Cloverdale’s TT campground at Russian River and, after getting fuel and tobacco, headed south to Healdsburg. The road to Stewart’s Point on the east end is wide, well-marked and easy to drive. For the next 43 miles the road gets increasingly challenging to drive with long, blind single lane only portions, continuous sharp curves, 10% or greater climbs and descents, ancient one-lane bridges across waterways and stunning scenery right from the outset. On the east end we started in rolling hill pasture with oak and conifer clumps and by the time we got to the west end and the ocean, we were driving in almost exclusively second-growth Redwood forests. The road follows two local streams that seem to be about a circuitous as possible. I don’t think we went more than about 12 miles as the crow flies but it took us 43 miles and an hour and three quarters to make the crossing from east to west. To eliminate any confusion about our sanity, we returned the same way after a short trip up the coast for a picnic and a whiz.
When we got back almost all the way to Healdsburg, we came by some superb viewpoints to see the fires raging in the country east and southeast of our current camping spot. The columns of smoke are truly impressive. I’m glad nobody I know is over there on a fire crew. It looks like a terrible job this year.
Peggy tricked me into taking her out to dinner on our way home. She first said, “How about taking us out for dinner tonight?” and I answered, “Okee-Dokee” so we pulled off at a place called the Hamburger Ranch and BBQ on the north end of Cloverdale. The prices are a bit high but the food was excellent. A brisket plate with 2 sides and a very large cheeseburger with sweet potato fries was about $35, no drinks but tip included. Their baked beans are to die for.
We got some pix along the way. Click here
Due to a complete lack of talent on the part of the operator, today’s pictures also can be seen in the album for the 21st.

We can tell the fires are still burning around us because the sky looks like mud. We chose to fiddle around instead of performing any productive work today since you can’t breathe or see through the smoke outside. We did find the first Bank of America branch in about 3000 miles in nearby Healdsburg so we went there and got naughty with the ATM. I think the last one we saw was in Eugene back on the 22nd of August. We also drank what some would call too much but, since we are old, we don’t give a shit.
Some of our Cloverdale buddies can be seen by clicking here

Despite our fears about road closures, we left Richardson Grove and headed south on US-101. Recent fires have ravaged the counties where we are headed and we are not entirely sure we will be allowed to proceed south on this route.
101 along the Eel River in Humboldt County was beautiful with clear skies and no indication of any fire. Soon we passed out of the Eel River watershed and into the Russian River Valley in Mendocino County. We drove along miles of scorched terrain on the east side of 101, only occasionally seeing areas where fires jumped the road and both sides were scorched. At one particularly challenging section, we passed more than a mile where the guardrails had melted and the support posts had been incinerated down to skinny jagged sticks. The southbound right lane of the highway was closed because the surface was melted and broken into little jigsaw puzzle pieces.
After the burned area, we headed further downriver and broke out into smoky but undamaged country near Ukiah. The remainder of our drive was pretty uneventful and soon we got off 101 at Geysers Road and pulled into Thousand Trails Russian River. This campground is situated on the side of a hill and backing into many of the RV spaces can be challenging. Fortunately, due to the recent evacuation of this campground due to fire, there were plenty of good spaces available. We even got a pull-thru which is pretty rare around here. There is no wifi or sewer but we will be okay for a few days until we take off on what we expect to be a miserable trek through the San Francisco Bay area. There are no open parks north of the Golden Gate because they burned up in the last week. There are virtually no parks in the 75 miles south of the Golden Gate because the property values are too high. The next TT park south of us is in Morgan Hill and we understand it flooded recently and we won’t be staying there in the immediate future.
There are some photos of scorched stuff we saw if you click here

Last night we chatted with some folks who told us they had been evacuated from an area where the fire danger from California’s current spate of fires was high, namely our next scheduled destination. We started the process of rejiggering our travel agenda because it seemed the route south was ablaze.
We called our next RV campground, the TT facility called Russian River, but nobody answered the phone because it is Sunday. We got the owner of our current campground, Richardson Grove RV, to allow us to extend because we were going to be gone today. We got out the maps and started checking out our options, all of them grim. Going east from the Humboldt County area over to I-5, the next available route south, is difficult. Either CA-199 or CA-299 are the only choices and they are both harrowing drives for large vehicles. Our remaining option was to go north about 200 miles to Coos County, OR, to take OR-42 to I-5 where we could go south. It is about 550 miles out-of-the-way.
Strangely, we got a call from the management at Russian River this morning who confirmed that they were closed due to fire hazard. However, by midday, the same folks called back and told us that a district manager had told them to open the campground so, again, we intend to go south down US-101. We’ll see how it turns out. There are not really any campgrounds in the Marin County / San Francisco / Silicon Valley area so we need to stop at Russian River before embarking on our feared passage through the Bay Area. We really do not enjoy passing through this area but there’s no other way if traveling on the coast.

Today we took a spin up the Avenue of the Giants, a stunningly beautiful drive through the Redwoods. We started by heading north on 101 which passes right in front of our campground. Immediately we entered Richardson Grove State Park where it looks like the campgrounds are open but the visitor center is closed.
We had to stay on 101 for about 10 miles until getting on the Avenue of the Giants at Phillipsville. The Avenue runs down the Eel River on the opposite side from US-101. There are many impressive groves of old-growth Redwood forest alongside the road with some truly impressive trees right next to the road. The groves of trees look like giant clumps of attack submarines standing on their bows. At a couple of the groves with places to get off the road, Peggy and I bailed out of the truck for some strolls through this magnificent forest. The floors of these groves are pretty clear except for an abundance of ferns, massive windfalls and plenty of poison oak waiting to to make the unsuspecting itch.
Peggy and I took a very pleasant stroll through a place called The Founders Grove, an astonishingly beautiful wonderland of giant Redwoods. We had almost finished our hike when we found a sturdy bench where we could get off our feet and commune with nature. We happily took a seat and settled in for a few minutes of admiration. It was almost silent with the whispering of the breeze passing through the trees and some bird calls as the only audible sounds we could detect. It was dark and shady due to the almost opaque canopy. We could tell it was sunny above the canopy because sparkling shafts of light pierced our cool, dark, quiet observation post. Then a large party of Oriental folks arrived, chattering loudly in a language we do not speak (Not English) and gathering into a noisy crowd around the nearby stump of the gigantic Founders Tree. Once they had a quorum, they started down the trail, passing right behind our comfortable bench. About the third platoon of the noisy visitors were passing behind us, making loud undecipherable sounds, when one of the girls blasted out a very melodious, plainly audible fart without missing a beat in her conversation. It was all I could do to restrain myself from asking the perp if she couldn’t do that next time downwind. I looked over at Peggy and she was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. She isn’t deaf, you know, and farts can be funny. We are so culturally unaware that we didn’t even know that Orientals fart but we do know that Blacks and those with Hispanic surnames definately do.
We continued to the north end of the Avenue at Pepperwood which somehow has its name transformed into Peckerwood in my mind. I must have watched too many movies about the Old West and that portion of America referred to as “The South.” We could have taken 101 south back to our RV park but instead we turned around and headed right back down the same road we had used to get there. The Avenue of the Giants is just as impressive going south as it is going north. I would suggest that anybody passing through the Eel River Valley take the Avenue instead of nearby US-101. The Avenue is a bit slower but the scenery is unforgettable.
Once we got back to Richardson Grove, we struck up a conversation with our neighbors in the park and they indicated they were evacuated from our next destination in Cloverdale due to the proximity of some of California’s current forest infernos. We may have some schedule changes coming because we originally intended to leave tomorrow and that looks pretty grim now.
We did get some nice woodsy shots you can see if you click here