Both of us are now reaping the benefits of being ill. Peggy said she didn’t really feel too bad and I thought I was getting better so we decided to take a exploratory drive to the coast. Neither of us have been on any of the roads in this part of the world so we knew everything we would see would be new.
We drove south into Cloverdale where we turned onto a road shown on the map as leading out to Stewarts Point which is over on the coast. We were moseying along happily until we drove past a sign indicating a locked gate 8.5 miles ahead. We thought the sign was in error since we were convinced we were on the right road. We fired up the Garmin which confirmed that we were bollixed up and we needed to turn around and backtrack about 6 miles. Peggy broke out the DeLorme Gazetteer and it confirmed we had indeed turned the wrong way. We were not too brokenhearted because there was absolutely stunning scenery along what we now knew was something called Rockpile Road.
We went back to where we fouled up and turned onto the unmarked Stewarts Point Road which is very twisty with quite steep hills and long single-lane sections sections through gorgeous but very rough and rocky terrain. On the ridges we could see stands of timber and massive but steep pastures and in the valleys we passed through redwood groves and followed streams.
After about 40 miles, we broke out to the coast and the scenery was magnificent. We turned north along CA-1 at Stewarts Point and were treated to almost magical vistas of coastline with turquoise and blue ocean on one side and big pastures mixed with Monterey Cypress groves in the drainages. Nobody was on the highway with us and we could stop right in the travel lanes without pissing anybody off. We passed through the towns of Sea Ranch, Anchor Bay, Gualala, Point Arena with its skinny lighthouse, Manchester and Elk on the way and they are about what we expected – tiny communities with wonderful old houses. CA-1 is a pretty good road but none of the travels we did today passed over roads over which I would pull a big trailer. Curves are sharp and nothing is level.
Near Albion we turned southeast on CA-128 through the Navarro Redwoods State Park which was spectacular. The road travels right next to the Navarro River and we started spotting quite a bit of wildlife. Peggy spotted some bears and either a bobcat or mountain lion hanging out near the water and deer were everywhere. The groves of redwood trees we passed through are in the bottom of a steep river valley and and they block out so much of the daylight that our automatic headlights came on and stayed on throughout the park. It is an extraordinary place and we vowed to return.
We continued on CA-128 through the towns of Navarro, Philo, Boonville (where they speak Boontling, an undecipherable language) and Yorkville before arriving back in Cloverdale. We stopped at a CVS Pharmacy to pick up more cold medicine. Peggy seems to be getting better but I seem to be sliding downhill. Time for some NyQuil.
Some pix can be seen if you click here